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Reprinted for the Pilgrim Tercentenary 



The 

American Spirit 

The Landing 
of the Pilgrims 

and 
Other Orations 

WEBSTER 



ELDER 



SCOTT, 
FORESMAN 
and COMPANY 



Chicago 
New York 



REPRINTED FOR 

THE PILGRIM TERCENTENARY 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

AS EXPRESSED IN 

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 
AND SELECTIONS FROM OTHER ORATIONS 

BY 

DANIEL WEBSTER 



EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 

BY 

SARAH ELDER 

TEACHER OP ENGLISH, KALAMAZOO HIGH SCHOOL 
KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN 



SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 



F6« 



"We sit here in the Promised Land 
That floM's with Freedom's honey and milk; 
But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, 
Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk." 

"Harvard Commemoration Ode," LowtJl. 



^ 



'i^^ 



() 



COPYRiaHT, 1920, SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

OCT 22 IJ2Q 
©ClA6009'i5 



FOREWORD 

The object of the Pilgrim Tercentenary Celebration is 
to arouse and strengthen the true American spirit. No 
writer or speaker has better expressed that spirit than 
Daniel Webster. These two thoughts have brought about 
the present publication. "The First Settlement of New 
England" is the most complete and appropriate for this 
occasion of Webster's patriotic speeches. Selections from 
the other orations have been added, wherever passages 
have been found setting iforth in a forceful way the 
American idea. There have been included also a brief 
list of poems embodying the same idea, a list of pictures 
illustrating episodes of the Pilgrims' journey, and a 
pageant which has been successfully given. 

The biographical materia is largely a group of selections 
brought together from eminent sources to illustrate how 
Webster himself was a development of the American ideal. 
For the use of the quotations, particularly from Lodge's 
Daniel Webster, Houghton Mifflin & Co.; Curtis's Life of 
Daniel Webster, Appleton ; McMaster's Daniel Webster, 
Century; as well as for the text of the orations which is 
taken from the National Edition of Webster's Writings and 
Speeches, grateful acknowledgment is made to the pub- 
lishers. 

The Editor. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Foreword 3 

Introduction — 

The Pilgrim Tercentenary 7 

The Pilgrim Calendar 9 

The Mayflower Compact 10 

Inscription on the Pilgrim Memorial Monument 11 

A Pageant of the Pilgrims 12 

Daniel Webster — 

The Tj^pical New Englander 15 

The Defender of the Constitution 19 

The Greatest American Orator 22 

Important Events in the Life of Daniel Webster 27 

Most Famous Orations of Daniel Webster 28 

Bibliographies ' 29 

Orations — 

Outline of First Settlement of New England 33 

First Settlement of New England 35 

The Greek Revolution 67 

The Bunker Hill Monument 70 

Adams and Jefferson , 74 

The Character of Washington 76 

The Landing at Plymouth 80 

Pilgrim Festival at New York in 1850 85 

The Addition to the Capitol 93 



INTEODUCTION 

The Pilgrim Tercentenary 

On Monday, December 21,* 1620, the Pilgrims landed 
on the shore of Plymouth Harbor. It was for them not 
only the culmination of a long, stormy, uncomfortable 
voyage of sixty-six days, but the consummation of their 
quest for a home wherQ they might govern themselves, 
educate their children, and, unmolested, worship God after 
their own fashion ; a quest pursued for thirteen years from 
the leaving of their English homes in 1607. For us it was 
the beginning of the great American Eepublic. The com- 
pact signed on board the Mayflower ten days before was 
a momentous document, the first "constitution" of a great 
Christian commonwealth, the first declaration of the rights 
of Englishmen to self-government in the fullest sense. 

The anniversary of these events has, from time to time, 
been fittingly commemorated. The first celebration took 
place under the auspices of the "Old Colony Club" on 
Friday, December 22, 1769. To the social aspect of this 
occasion there was added in 1770 a short address, pro- 
nounced "with mode^st and decent firmness, by a member 
of the club, Edward AVinslow, Jr., Esq." In 1771, at the 
suggestion of Eev. Chandler Eobbins, a public sermon 
was delivered, as peculiarly adapted to the occasion. The 
anniversary celebrations continued without interruption 

until 1780, in spite of the dissolution of the "Old Colony 

\ 

♦The date was December 11. old style. By mistake the twenty- 
second of Jtecember has been the date usually observed in anniver- 
sary celebrations. 



8 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Club" in 1773. After an interval of fourteen years a 
public discourse was again delivered by the Rev. Dr. Rob- 
bins. With private celebrations or public addresses the day 
was from that time on annually commemorated until 1819. 
In 1820 the "Pilgrim Society" was formed by the citizens 
of Plymouth and the descendants of the Pilgrims in other 
places who were desirous of uniting "to commemorate the 
landing, and to honor the memory of the intrepid men who 
first set foot on Plymouth Rock."* The founding of this 
society gave a new impulse to the anniversary celebration, 
and Daniel Webster was requested to deliver the public 
address on the twenty-second of December of that year, 
the bicentennial. He entitled his oration "The First Set- 
tlement of New England." 

From 1820 to the present day, with occasional inter- 
ruptions, the twenty-second of December has been cele- 
brated by the Pilgrim Society. Not only in Plymouth and 
New England has the day been commemorated but in other 
parts of the country as well, particularly in New York. 
Twice, in 1843 and again in 1850, Webster was the speaker 
at the annual dinner of the New England Society of New 
York. 

Now the three hundredth anniversary approaches. And 
it is being fittingly commemorated. The celebration is 
international in its scope, beginning in July in England 
in the original homes of the Pilgrims and the points of 
their departure, continuing in Holland in the later summer, 
and again in England at Southampton and Plymouth. It 
will reach its height in America at Provincetown in the 
fall and thence will touch all America and all the English- 

*See the works of Webster, Vol. I, pp. 3 and 4. Little, Brown 
and Company, 1854. 



IXTRODUCTIOX 9 

speaking world, celebrating especially November 11th,* 
when the Mayflower compact was signed; Thanksgiving 
Day, the most distinctive American festival — one of New 
England origin ; and finally the three hundredth anniver- 
sary of the landing at Plymouth, December 21, 1920. 

THE PILGRIM CALENDAR 
July 1620— January 1621 

(All these dates, except where otherwise stated, are according 
to Old Style. To conform to our present reckoning (New Style) 
add in each case 10 days. Forefathers' Day is Old Style, Dec. 1 1 ; 
New Style, Dec. 21. There are differences of opinion and uncer- 
tainties in a few cases.) 
July 25. The Mayflower leaves London. 
29. Arrives at Southampton. 
31. (Probably.) The Pilgrims leave Leyden. 
Aug. 1. Pilgrims in Speedioell sail from Delftshaven. 

5. Speedwell arrives at Southampton. (Bradford, "about 
ye 5"; perhaps a day or two earlier.) 

15. Both ships sail from Southampton. 

22. Speedwell dangerously leaking. Puts in to Dartmouth. 

Sept. 2. Sails from Dartmouth. 

5. Speedwell again leaking. 

7. Arrives at Plymouth. 

12. Speedioell sails for London with twenty passengers. 

16. Mayflower sails from Plymouth. 

Oct. 3. First death on board. Heavy gales. Ship in danger. 
Nov. 9. Signs of land. 

10. Discovers Cape Cod (somewhere about Truro). 

11. Cape Cod ( Provincetown ) Harbor. Go ashore to cut 
wood. Compact signed in cabin. 

12. Sunday. All on ship for rest and worship. 

13. The sliallop puts ashore for mending. The women land 
and wash soiled clothes. 

•Armistice Day. 



10 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

15. First exploring party of sixteen starts. 

17. The party returns with Indian corn and report of 
Indians. 

22. Weather turns cold and stormy. 

27. Second exploring party of thirty-four (nine sailors) 
goes ashore. Peregrine White born. 

* 29. Expedition returns with corn. Eighteen men remain 
on shore over night. 
Dec. 3. Much Illness from exposure. 

6. Third exploring party seeks a harbor for settlement. 
Eighteen — including Standish, Carver, Bradford, and 
others — ^with ship's mate, who has been at Plymouth. 

7. Mrs. Dorothy Bradford drowned. 

8. The exploring party lands in the night on Clarke's 
Island, Plymouth Harbor. 

11. (Monday; New Style, 21). Twelve Pilgrims land 
from shallop and explore. (Forefathers' Day as we 
celebrate it.) 

13. Return to the Mayfloicer at Provincetown Bay. 

14. The Mayflower sails for Plymoutli. 

16. Anchors in Plymouth Harbor. 

17. Sunday. All stay on ship. 

18. Exploring parties out on shore. 
20. Town site determined. 

21-22. Stormy days keep them on ship. 

23. Timber felling begins. 

25. The beginning of the first house. 

26. Violent storm liolds them on the ship. 

28. Gun platform on hill begun. Land in village allotted. 
Many ill. 

29-30. Stormy and kept to ship. Indian smokes seen. 



THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT 

In ye name of God, Amen. We whose names are under- 
written, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, 



IXTRODUCTIOX H 

King James, by ye grace of God, Great Britaine, France, 
& Ireland king, defender of ye faith, &c., haveing under- 
taken, for 3'e glorie of God, and advancemente of ye 
Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a 
vo3^age to plant ye first colonic in ye Northerne parts of 
Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in ye 
presence of God, and one of another, covenant & combine 
our selves togeather into a civill body politick, for our 
better ordering & preservation & furtherance of ye ends 
aforesaid ; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and 
frame such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, consti- 
tutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought 
most meete & convenient for ye generall good of ye 
Colonic, unto which we promise all due submission and 
obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder sub- 
scribed our names at Cap-Codd ye 11. of November, in ye 
year of ye raigne of our soveraigne lord. King James, of 
England, France, & Ireland ye eighteenth, and of Scot- 
land ye fiftie fourth. Ano : Dom. 1620. 

From Bradford's Hisiori/ "Of Plimoiifh I'lantntion." 



INSCRIPTION ON Tin: PiL(;i!i:\[ :\iemorial monument, 

rROVIXCETOWN, ]\rASS. 

On N'ovember 21, 1620, the Mayflower, carrying 102 
passengers, men and women and children, cast anchor in 
this harbor 67 days from Plymouth, England. 

The same day the 41 adult males in the company had 
solemnly covenanted and combined themselves together 
into a "civill body Politick." 

This body politick, established and maintained on this 



13 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

bleak and barren edge of a vast wilderness, a state without 
a king or a noble, a church without a bishop or a priest, a 
democratic commonwealth, the members of which were 
straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the 
whole by everyone. 

With long-suffering devotion and sober resolution they 
illustrated for the first time in history the principles of 
civil and religious liberty and the practice of a genuine 
democracy. 

THEREFOEE— the remembrance of them shall be per- 
petual in the vast republic that has inherited their ideals. 

Charles W. Eliot. 



A PAGEANT OF THE PILGRIMS 
1620-1920 

TERCENTENARY OF THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS 
Auspices of Americanization Department Y. M. C. A. of Chicago 
Scene I . 

COURT OF CHARLES I 

Scene at Hampton Court Gardens. Queen Henrietta Maria 
and her ladies and favorites ' hold court. Dancing. They are 
interrupted by Prynne and his followers, who rebuke the queen 
for her levity. 

Queen Guards 

Page Trumpeter 

Ladies and Gentlemen in Waiting Cromwell 

Dance Ironsides 

Dance (Faun and Nymphs) Prynne 

King Mob (Puritans) 

Aid 

Scene II 

PILGRIMS AT LEYDEN 

Scene on the dock: Dutch burghers strolling about, women 
knitting and marketing, children playing games. Pilgrims enter 



INTRODUCTION 13 

ready to embark. Children play together. Robinson, Brewster, 
and Carver draw up resolutions. Prayer and hymn. Embarka- 
tion. 

Scene III 

LANDING FROM THE MAYFLOWER 

Great joy of Pilgrims — "Praise God." Settling. Hardships, 
anxiety, and homesickness. Fear of savages. Samoset appears. 
"Welcome Englishmen." Squanto shows planting and fishing. 
Chief Massasoit forms treaty with the Pilgrims. Thanksgiving 
feast after the good harvest of 1623. Games. Men enter sports 
and athletics with the Indians. 



Elder Robinson 


Dutch Women 


Squanto 


Elder Brewster 


Dutch Children 


Chiefs 


Elder Carver 


Puritan Children 


Dancers 


Pilgrims 


Massasoit 


Bowmen 


Puritan Women 


Samoset 
Scene IV 




GROWTH OF COLONIES 





Important Events in Early American History 
Organization of Government. Governor of Plymouth Colony — 
Bradford. Governor Winthrop. Founding of Massachusetts Bay 
Colony, 1631. Connecticut, 1635 — Governor Winslow. Laws — 
"The Body of Liberties." Harvard College founded, 1636. Com- 
mon Schools system founded in 1647. First books printed, 1639 — 
New England Almanac. Psalms, 1640. 

Short Scenes in Early American Infe 
The work of John Eliot among the Indians. 
The story of Miles Standish, John Alden, and Priscilla. 
Tableaux — Colonial Scene and Minuet. 

Girl Scouts Colonial Ladies and Gentlemen 

Betsy Ross Liberty Boys of '76 

George Washington 
Attack on Fort ]\fcHcnry — The Star Spangled Banner. 
Gunners Flag Raiser Signal Corps 

Pioneer Scene — Lincoln family and groups of pioneers. 
Abraham Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln Ladies 



14 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 



Scene V 

INTERLUDE — PROGRESS OF THE NATION 

Allegorical dance of the years : past, present, and future. 
Scene VI 

AMERICA — THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY 

America, Opportunity, and Abundance Greet Progress, Arts, and 
Sciences. 

America Beauty Architecture 

Opportunity Music Education 

Progress Art Invention 

Abundance Dancing Sciences 

Harvest Children 
Scene VII 

PROCESSION OF NATIONS 

Procession of Peoples of the Earth. They pass before the 
Altar of Freedom and feed its flames with Loyalty and Service. 
Foreign groups pass in order of arrival in America. Assemble 
around altar. Rededication to the principles of Americanism. 
Sing "America." i 



Daniel Webster 
the typical new englander 

That Daniel Webster should have been the orator of the 
bicentennial celebration of the Pilgrim landing at Ply- 
mouth was most natural and fitting. He was at that time 
the foremost orator in America and soon to be ranked, on 
account of this very speech and others which shortly fol- 
lowed, chronologically fourth of the world's orators. And 
who shall say which is greatest — Demosthenes, Cicero, 
Burke, or Webster? He was also in many marked phases 
a typical representative of the New England for which he 
spoke. 

Neither of his parents was a descendant of Mayflower 
Pilgrims, but they were of real Puritan stock,, and in his 
childhood the family suffered the hardships and developed 
the virtues of the Plymouth Puritans. In a speech de- 
livered at Saratoga in 18^:0 Webster said : 

"It did not happen to me to be l)orn in a log cabin ; but 
my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, 
raised amid the snowdrifts of New Hampshire, at a period 
so early that, when the smoke first rose from its rude 
cliimney and curled over the frozen hills, there was no 
similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it 
and the settlements on tlie rivers of Canada. Its remains 
still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my 
children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the 
generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell 
on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affec- 
tions, and the touching narratives and iacidents which 

15 



16 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

miiigie with all I know of this primitive family abode. I 
weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now 
among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if 
I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared 
it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, 
cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, 
through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary 
war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve 
his country, and to raise his children to a condition better 
than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity 
be blotted forever from the memory of mankind !"* 

Webster shared the Puritan reverence for education, and 
gained an education by great sacrifice, made largely by his 
father and the family. As a child he was sent to the dis- 
trict school, following the wandering schoolmaster from 
place to place, for the district was large and had three log 
schoolhouses. The boy was thirteen when his father 
reached a decision about his further education and an- 
nounced his determination. Webster tells the story :t 

"Of a hot day in July, it must have been in one of the 
last years of Washington's administration, I was making 
hay with my father, just where I now see a remaining 
elm tree. About the middle of the forenoon the Honorable 
Abiel Foster, M. C, who lived in Canterbury, six miles off, 
called at the house, and came into the field to see my 
father. He was a worthy man, college-learned, and had 
been a minister, but was not a person of any considerable 
natural power. My father was his friend and supporter. 
He talked awhile in the field, and went on his way. Wlien 
he was gone, my father called me to him, and we sat down 

•National Edition of Webster's Writings. Vol. Ill, p. 30. 
tCurtis: Life of Daniel Webster, Vol. I, pp. 17 and 18. 



INTRODUCTION 17 

beneath the elm on a haycock. He said, 'My son, that is 
a worthy man; he is a member of Congress; he goes to 
Philadelphia, and gets six dollars a da)% while I toil here. 
It is because he had an education, which I never had. If 
I had his early education I should have been in Phila- 
delphia in his place. I came near it as it was. But I 
missed it, and now I must work here.' 'My dear father,' 
said I, 'you shall not work. Brother and I will work for 
you, and will wear our hands out, and you shall rest.' 
And I remember to have cried, and I cry now at the 
recollection. 'My child,' said he, 'it is of no importance 
to me. I now live but for my children. I could not give 
your elder brothers the advantages of knowledge, but I 
can do something for you. Exert yourself, improve your 
opportunities, learn, learn, and when I am gone, you Mali 
not need to go through the hardships which I have under- 
gone, and which have made me an old man before my 
time.' " 

A year later young Daniel was entered at Exeter Acad- 
emy, and after some tutoring, matriculated in Dartmouth 
College in 1797, from which he was graduated in 1801. 
"He was recognized by all as the foremost man in the col- 
lege, as easily first, with no second. He read voraciously 
all the English literature he could lay his hands on, and 
remembered everything he read."* Of his own methods 
he sa)'s: 

"So much as I read, I made my own. When a half-hour. 
or an hour at most, had elapsed. T closed my book, and 
thought over what I had read. If there was anything 
peculiarly interesting or striking in the passage, I en- 

•Lodgre: Webster, p. Ifi. 



18 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

deavored to recall it and lay it up in my memory, and 
commonly could effect my object. Then if, in debate or 
conversation afterward, any subject came up on which I 
had read something, I could talk very easily so far as I 
had read, and there I was very careful to stop."* 

His religious training and attitude were those of the 
Puritan, beginning as he himself tells, with his being 
taught to read "by his mother or sister at so early an age 
that he never knew the time when he could not peruse the 
Bible with ease."t "His talents were known in the neigh- 
borhood, and the passing teamsters, while they watered 
their horses, delighted to get 'Webster's boy' with his 
delicate look and great dark eyes, to come out beneath the 
shade of the trees and read the Bible to them with all the 
force of his childish eloquence."| This earliest textbook 
was curiously the basis of his admission to Exeter Academy 
as McMaster relates: 

"Young Buckminster summoned Webster to his presence, 
put on his hat, and said, 'Well, sir, what is your age?' 
'Fourteen,' was the reply. 'Take this Bible, my lad, and 
read that chapter,' The passage given him was St. Luke's 
dramatic description of the conspiring of Judas with the 
chief priests and scribes, of the Last Supper, of the 
betrayal of Judas, of the three denials of Peter, and of 
the scene in the house of the high priest. But young 
Webster was equal to the test, and read the whole passage 
to the end in a voice and with a fervor such as Master 
Buckminster had never listened to before. 'Young man,' 

♦McMaster: Life of Webster, pp. 17 and 18. 
flbid, p. 9. 
JLodge. p. 11. 



INTRODUCTION 19 

said he, 'you are qualified to enter this institution,' and no 
more questions were put to him."* 



THE DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION 

Webster's rightful claim to his title of "Defender of the 
Constitution" is based, as were his opportunities for 
education, on his father's character and conduct. 

Ebenezer Webster, his father, just after the treason of 
Arnold, guarded the general's tent at West Point, and 
Washington said to him, "Captain Webster, I believe I 
can trust you.'"t George Ticknor Curtis relates the elder 
Webster's share in the adoption of the Constitution when 
he was a member of the New Hampshire convention. 

"Mr. Webster once repeated to me, with great pride, a 
little speech made by his father before giving his vote for 
the Constitution, and requested me, if I ever had an oppor- 
tunity, to do something to perpetuate it. It is well known 
that when the Convention of New Hampshire first 
assembled, in February, 1788, a majority of the delegates 
were found to be under instructions from their towns to 
vote against the Constitution. This was the case with 
Colonel Webster. But the Convention was adjourned to 
meet again in June; and, in the meantime, Colonel Web- 
ster obtained from his constituents permission to vote 
according to his own judgment. When the vote was about 
to be taken, he rose, and said : 'Mr. President, I have 
listened to the arguments for and against the Constitution. 
I am convinced such a government as that Constitution 

*McMaster: Life of Wehster, pp. 15 ff. 

tLodge : Daniel Webster, p. 7. ' 



20 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

will establish, if adopted — a government acting directly 
on the people of the States — is necessary for the common 
defense and the general welfare. It is the only government 
which will enable us to pay off the national debt — the debt 
which we owe for the Kevolution, and which we are bound 
in honor fully and fairly to discharge. Besides, I have 
followed the lead of Washington through seven years of 
war, and I have never been misled. His name is subscribed 
to this Constitution. He will not mislead us now. I 
shall vote for its adoption.' "* 

The story is further told of Daniel Webster's own first 
acquaintance with the Constitution : "It was in the shop 
kept by one of these early district school teachers that 
Daniel, while still a mere child, first beheld a copy of the 
Federal Constitution, printed with gorgeous adornment on 
a cotton pocket handkerchief. Attracted probably by the 
eagle, the flags, and the brilliant coloring, he bought the 
handkerchief, read the text, and from this, he says, 'I 
learned either that there was a Constitution or that there 
were thirteen States'." t 

But what this title really signifies and what Mr. 
Webster stands for in our history is best summed up by 
Henry Cabot Lodge in the last paragraph of his life of 
Daniel Webster: 

"But after all has been said, the question of most in- 
terest is, what Mr. Webster represented, what he effected, 
and what he means in our history. The answer is simple. 
He stands today as the preeminent champion and exponent 
of nationality. He said once, 'There are no Alleghanies in 

♦Curtis: Li'/e o/ Wehster, Vol. I. p. 9. 
tMcMtister : Daniel Webster, pp. 'J and 10. 



INTRODUCTION 21 

my politics,' and he spoke the exact truth. Mr. Webster 
was thoroughly national. There is no taint of sectionalism 
or narrow local prejudice about him. He towers up as an 
American, a citizen of the United States in the fullest 
sense of the v;ord. He did not invent the Union, or dis- 
cover the doctrine of nationality. But he found the great 
fact and the great principle ready to his hand, and he 
lifted them up, and preached the gospel of nationality 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. In his 
fidelity to this cause he never wavered nor faltered. From 
the first burst of boyish oratory to the sleepless nights at 
Marshfield, when, waiting for death, he looked through the 
window at the light which showed him the national flag 
fluttering from its staff, his first thought was of a united 
country. To his large nature the Union appealed power- 
fully by the mere sense of magnitude which it conveyed. 
The vision of future empire, the dream of the destiny of 
an unbroken union touched and kindled his imagination. 
He could hardly speak in public without an allusion to 
the grandeur of American nationality, and a fervent appeal 
to keep it sacred and intact. For fifty years, with reitera- 
tion ever more frequent, sometimes with rich elaboration, 
sometimes with brief and simple allusion, he poured this 
message into the ears of a listening people. His words 
passed into textbooks, and became the first declamations 
of schoolboys. They were in everyone's mouth. They 
sank into the hearts of the people, and became uncon- 
sciously a part of their life and daily thoughts. When the 
hour came, it was love for the Union and the sentiment of 
nationality which nerved the aim of the North, and sus- 
tained her courage. That love had been fostered, and that 



22 THE AMERICAX SPIRIT 

sentiment had been strengthened and vivified, by the life 
and words of Webster. No one had done so much, or had 
so large a share in this momentous task. Here lies the 
debt which the American people owe to Webster, and here 
is his meaning and importance in his own time and to us 
today. His career, his intellect, and his achievements are 
inseparably connected with the maintenance of a great 
empire, and the fortunes of a great people. So long as 
English oratory is read or studied, so long will his 
speeches stand high in literature. So long as the Union 
of these States endures, or holds a place in history, will 
the name of Daniel Webster be honored and remembered, 
and his stately eloquence find an echo in the hearts of his 
countrymen."* 

THE GREATEST AilERICAN ORATOR 

The story of Webster's shyness in Exeter, brought on 
doubtless by some of his associates ridiculing his rustic 
manners and clothes, is well known. In his autobiography 
he says : "There was one thin,2: I could not do — I could not 
make a declamation, I could not speak before the school. 
The kind and excellent Buckminster sought especially 
to persuade me to perform the exercise of declamation 
like the other boys, but I could not do it. Many a 
piece did I commit to memory, and recite and rehearse 
in my own room, over and over again, yet, when the 
day came, when the school collected to hear declama- 
tions, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned 
to my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes 
the instructors frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buck- 

♦Lodge : Daniel Webster, pp. 361-2. 



INTRODUCTION 23 

minster always pressed and entreated, most winningly, that 
I would venture, but I could never command sufficient 
resolution. When the occasion was over, I went home and 
wept bitter tears of mortification."* 

In Dartmouth he rapidly outgrew this hindrance and 
made several addresses which gave evidence of his future 
line of thought and something of his coming power, t This 
is particularly true of the oration which the citizens of 
Hanover, the college town, asked him to deliver on the 
Fourth of July, 1800. His studies as a lawyer and his 
training in the courts, where he met as his opponents and 
colleagues, the greatest lawyers of the day, rapidly per- 
fected his style and developed, his resources; the following 
account of his first speech in Congress, given on June 10, 
1813, is not extravagant: 

''The speech took the House by surprise, not so much 
from its eloquence as from the vast amount of historical 
knowledge and illustrative ability displayed in it. How a 
person, untrained to forensic contests and unused to public 
affairs could exhibit so much parliamentary tact, such nice 
appreciation of the difficulties of a difficult question, and 
such quiet facility in surmounting them, puzzled the mind. 
The age and inexperience of the speaker had prepared the 
House for no such display, and astonishment for a time 
subdued the expression of its admiration. 

" 'No member before,' says a person then in the House 
'ever riveted the attention of the House so closely, in his 
first speech. Members left their seats, where they could 
not see the speaker face to face, and sat down, or stood on 
the floor, fronting him. All listened attentively and 

•Curtis: Lije of Daniel Webster, "Vol. I, p. 20. 
tLodge: Daniel Webster, pp. 20-23. 



24 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

silently, during the whole speech; and when it was over, 
many went up and warmly congratulated the orator; 
among whom were some, not the most niggard of their 
compliments, who most dissented from the views he had 
expressed.' 

"Chief Justice Marshall, writing to a friend some time 
after this speech says : 'At the time when this speech was 
delivered, I did not know Mr. "Webster, but I was so much 
struck with it that I did not hesitate then to state that 
Mr. Webster was a very able man, and would become one 
of the very first statesmen in America, and perhaps the 
very first.' "* » 

"The First Settlement of New England" was Webster's 
first great oration — an important departure from his 
speeches in court and Congress. The effect of this mem- 
orable oration is described by Mr. Ticknor in Curtis's Life 
of Webster :t 

"I went to Plymouth on the 21st of December, 1820, 
with Mr. and Mrs. Webster, Mr. and Mrs. I. P. Davis, 
Miss Stockton, Mr. F. C. Gray, and Miss Mary Mason. 
Where we stopped to dine we overtook fifty or sixty per- 
sons, among whom were Colonel Perkins, Mrs. S. G. 
Perkins, Mr. E. Everett, and many others of our acquaint- 
ance. Mr. Webster had been a little uninterested during 
the morning drive, wearied perhaps by his labors in the 
convention, and partly occupied with thoughts of the fol- 
lowing day. But at the little halfway house, where we all 
crowded into two or three small rooms, we had a very 
merry time, and Mr. Webster was as gay as anyone. In 

♦Biographical notes by Mr. March, quoted in the Memoir by 
Edward EAerett in the National Edition, Vol. I, p. 29. 
tCurtis: Life of Daniel Webster, Vol. I, pp. 192-195. 



INTRODUCTION 25 

the eveninof at Plymouth everything li;ul llie air of a fete; 
the houses of the principal street — in one of which we 
lodged — were all lighted up, so that the street itself was 
illuminated by them, and a band of music went up and 
down, followed by a crowd, while it serenaded the many 
strangers already collected from a distance for the great 
centenary anniversary. Old Mr. Samuel Davis, a sort of 
embodiment of the Pilgrim traditions of the seventeenth 
century, and others of the principal inhabitants of Ply- 
mouth paid their respects to Mr. Webster in the course of 
the evening, and made it very agreeable, from the recol- 
lections that they brought with them and the conversation 
that naturally followed. 

"In the morning I went with Mr. Webster to the church 
where he was to deliver the oration. It was the old First 
Church — Dr. Kendall's. He did not find the pulpit con- 
venient for his purpose, and after making two or three 
experiments, determined to speak from the deacon's seat 
under it. An extemporaneous table, covered with a green 
baize cloth, was arranged for the occasion, and, when the 
procession entered the church, everything looked appro- 
priate, though, when the arrangement was first suggested, 
it sounded rather odd. The building was crowded ; indeed, 
the streets had seemed so all the morning, for the weather 
was fine, and the whole population was astir as for a 
holiday. The oration was an hour and fifty minutes long, 
but the whole of what was printed a year afterward, for it 
was a 5^ear before it made its appearance, was not de- 
livered. His manner was very fine — quite various in the 
different parts. The passage about the slave trade was 
delivered with a power of indignation such as T nevor 



•?6 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

witnessed on any other occasion. That at the end, when, 
spreading his arms as if to embrace them, he welcomed 
future generations to the great inheritance which we 
have enjoyed, was spoken with the most attractive sweet- 
ness, and that peculiar smile which in him was always 
so charming. The effect of the whole was very great. As 
soon as he got home to our lodgings, all the principal 
people then in Plymouth crowded about him. He was full 
of animation and radiant with happiness. But there was 
something about him very grand and imposing at the same 
time. In a letter which I wrote the same day, I said 
'he seemed as if he were like the mount that might not 
be touched, and that burned with fire.' " 

The Plymouth discourse was not published until about 
a year after its delivery. Public expectation had been 
greatly excited by the accounts of those who heard it, and 
the commendations of the local press. The following let- 
ter to Mr. Webster is a specimen of the manner in which 
it was received. 

(President John Adams to Mr. Webster.) 

Montezillo, December 23, 1831. 
"Dear Sir : I thank you for your discourse, delivered at 
Plymouth, on the termination of the second century of the 
landing of our fathers. Unable to read it from defect "of 
sight, it was last night read to me by our friend Shaw. 
The fullest justice that I could do it would be to transcribe 
it at full length. It is the effort of a great mind richly 
stored with every species of information. If there be an 
American who can read it without tears, I am not that 
American. It enters more perfectly into the genuine spirit 



INTRODUCTION 27 

of New England than any production I ever read. The 
observations on the Greeks and Eomans; on colonization 
in general ; on the ^Yest India Islands ; on the past, present, 
and future of America, and on the slave trade are saga- 
cious, profound, and affecting in a high degree. 

"Mr. Burke is no longer entitled to the praise — the most 
consummate orator of modern times. 

""Wliat can I say of what regards myself? To my 
humble name, 'Exegisti monumentum acre perennius.' 

"This oration will be read five hundred years hence with 
as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at 
the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every 
year, forever and ever. 

"I am, sir, with the profoundest esteem, your obliged 
friend and very humble servant, 

"John Adams." 

The Honorable Daniel Webster. 

Respecting subsequent appreciation, it can only be neces- 
sary to say that this discourse has become classical in our 
literature, and that it is generally regarded as the corner- 
stone of 'Mr. "Webster's fame as an orator. 

IMPORTAXT EVENTS IK THE LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER 

1782 January 18, birth in Salisbury, New Hampshire. 
1794 Exeter Academy. 
1797-1801 Dartmouth College. 

1805 Admission to the bar in Boston. 

1806 Death of his father. 

1808 Marriage to Grace Fletcher of Hopkinton, New 
Hampshire. 



28 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

1813 Election to Congress from New Hampshire, 

1813 Admission to the bar of the Supreme Court. 

1814 Second election to Congress. 
1816 Beginning of residence in Boston. 

1823 Third term in Congress, representative of Boston 
District. 

1827 Election to Senate. 

1828 Death of wife. 

1829 Marriage to Caroline LeEoy of New York. 
1839 Reelection to Senate. 

1841 Secretary of State under Tyler. 

1843 Ashburton Treaty. 

1843 Eesignation from Secretaryship. 

1844 Eeelection to Senate. 

1850 Secretary of State under Fillmore. 

1853 Defeat at Baltimore Convention. 

1853 October 24, death at Marshfield, Massachusetts. 

MOST FAMOUS ORATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTEB 

1818 Dartmouth College Case. 

1820 Plymouth Speech. 

1825 First Bunker Hill Monument Oration. 

1826 Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson. 

1830 Eeply to Hayne. 
White Murder Trial. 

1833 Character of Washington. 

1833 "The Constitution is not a compact between 

Sovereign States." 

1843 Completion of the Monument. 

1850 Seventh of March Speech. 

1852 Addition to the Capitol. 



Bibliographies 
plymouth and the pilgrims 

A. C. Addison: The Eoinantic Story of the Mayflower Pilgrims. 

Boston, 1911. L. C. Page and Co. Very good illustrations. 
Charles M. Andrews: The Fathers of New England. New Haven, 

1919. Yale University Press. 
E. Arber: The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1606-1623. London, 

1897. Ward & Downey. An excellently arranged compila- 
tion of sources on the history of the Pilgrims. 

Jane G. Austin: The Old Colony Stories: Betty Alden; A Name- 
less Nobleman; Standish of Standish; Dr. LeBaron and His 
Daughters; David Alden's Daughter, and other stories. 
Boston. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 

U. R. Bliss: The Old Colony Town. Boston, 1893. Houghton, 
Mifflin Co. 

William Bradford: History of Plimouth Plantation. Boston, 

1898. Wright and Porter, State Printers. 

John Brown: The Pilgrim Fathers of New England. New York, 

1895. Fleming H. Revell. 
Champlin Burrage: John Pory's Last Description of Plymouth 

Colony. Boston, 1918. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 
Ezra Hoyt Byington: The Puritan in England and New England. 

Gives the point of view of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
Mary Caroline Crawford: In the Days of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

Boston. Little, Brown and Co. 
H. M. Dexter: The England and Holland of the Pilgrims. 1905. 
Morton Dexter: The Story of the Pilgrims. Boston, 1894. Con- 
gregational S. S. and Publication Society. 
Samuel Adams Drake: The Making of New England. New York, 

1886. Scribner. 
Agnes Edwards: Cape Cod, New and Old. Boston. Houghton, 

Mifflin Co. 

29 



30 THE AMEPvICAX SPIRIT 

Agnes Edwards: The Old Coast Road. From Boston to Plymouth. 
Boston. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 

John Abbott Goodwin: The Pilgrim Republic (new edition). 
Boston. Houghton, Mifflin Co. Mr. Goodwin is the brother 
of Mrs. Jane G. Austin, author of the "Old Colony Stories" 
and an authority on Pilgrim times, customs, and manners. 

William Elliot Griffis: The Pilgrims in Their Three Homes. Bos- 
ton, 1898. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 

William Elliot Griffis: Young People's History of the Pilgrims. 
Boston. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 

Charles Stedman Hanks: Our Plymouth Forefathers. Boston, 
1008. Dana Estes & Co. 

Annie Russell Marble: The Women WJto Came in the May- 
flower. Boston. The Pilgrim Press. 

Winthrop Packard: Old Plymouth Trails. Boston. Small, May- 
nard and Co. 

John Gorham Palfrey: History of New England. 5 vols. Boston, 
1859. Little, Brown and Co. 

Lyman P. Powell: Historic Toicns of New England. 5 vols. New 
York, 1898. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

Roland G. Usher: The Pilgrims and Their History. New York, 
1918. Macmillan. 

William B. Weeden: Economic and Social History of New Kny 
land, 1620-1789. Boston. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 



SUGGESTED POEMS ABOUT THE PILGRIMS 

Kutlierine Lee Bates : America the Beautiful. 
INI. E. Buhler: A Puritan Exhortation. 
Amelia Josephine Burrr Abraham's Children. 
Bliss Carman: The Return of the Mayflower. 
Felicia Hemans: The Landing of the Pilgrims. 
Alfred Noyes: The Mayflower. 



IXTRODUCTIOX 31 

PAINTINGS AND PICTURES ILLUSTRATING THE PILGRIM STORY 

Bayes: Departure of the Mayflower (Perry 1334). 

George H. Poughton: John Alden and Priscilla (Perry), 1337; 

Pilgrim Exiles, 1336; Pilgrims Going to Church, 1339: 

Priscilla, 1338; Return of the Mayflower, 1336B; Two 

Farewells, 1335. 
Charles W. Cope: Sailing of the Mayflower. (In the House 

of Lords, London.) Departure of the Pilgrims from Delft 

Haven (Perry 1331C). 
James Montgomery Flagg: Landing of the Pilgrims. (Privately 

owned in New Haven.) 
W. F, Halsall: The Mayflower in Her First Morning at Sea. 

(In Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.) The Mayflower in Plymouth 

Harbor. (In Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.) (Perry 1331B.) 
Charles Lucy: The Embarkation. (In Pilgrim Hall.) 
Peter F. Rothermel: Landing of the Pilgrims. (Perry 13.32.) 
Henry Sargent: Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. (In 

Pilgrim Hall. Plymouth.) 
Robert G. Shaw: The Landing." (In Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.) 
Robert M. Weir: Embarkation of the Pilgrims. (Panel of 

Rotimda of Capitol at Washington.) (Perry 1331.) 
Photographs and postcards of Plymouth Rock, Forefathers' 
Monument, and other historical scenes may be had from Plymouth 
dealers. 

A remarkable series of reproductions in color has been re- 
cently issued by the Old Colony Trust Company, Boston, in 
their brochure "Ncav England — Old and New." 



BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNTS OF WEBSTER 

Sarah K. Bolton: Daniel Webster in Famous American States- 
men. 1888. Crowell. 

George Ticknor Curtis: Jyife of Daniel ^Vebster, 2 vols. New 
York, 1870. D. Appleton Cd. This is the standard Web- 
ster Biography. 



33 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

Sidney George Fisher,: True Daniel Wehster. 1911. Lippincott. 
Jolin Frost: Lije of Daniel Webster. 1869. Lee and Shepherd. 
Elbert Hubbard: Daniel Webster. Little Journeys to the Homes 

of American Statesmen. 1898. Putnam. 
Cliarles Lanman: The Private Life of Daniel Webster. New York, 

1852. Harper and Bros. 
Henry Cabot Lodge: Daniel Webster in American Statesmen 

Series. Boston, 1883. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 
John Bach McMaster: Daniel Webster. New York, 1902. The 

Century Co. 
Frederic Austin Ogg: Daniel Webster. 1914. Jacobs. 
Charles F. Richardson : Daniel Webster for Young Americans. 

With essay by E. P. Whipple on Daniel Webster as a Master 

of English Prose and Style. Boston, 1903. Little, Brown 

and Co. 
Carl Schurz: Daniel Webster, in Library of the World's Best 

Literature. Vol. XXXVIII. An excellent, short, impartial 

account. 
Everett P. Wheeler: Daniel Webster in Great American Lawyers. 

Vol. III. University edition. Philadelphia, 1908. 



AVORKS OF WEBSTER 

Edward Everett: Webster's Works. 6 Vols. Boston, 1851. Little, 
Brown and Co. First volume contains a Biographical 
Memoir of Daniel Webster. 

National Edition, 18 Vols.: Writings and Speeches. Boston, 1903. 
Little, Brown and Co. 

E. P. Whipple: The Great Speeches and Debates of Daniel Web- 
ster. Boston, 1879. Little, Brown and Co. 
Several of Webster's orations have been edited and published 

for school use. These volumes all contain excellent bibliographical 

and critical material. 



OEATIOXS 

outlim;: of 
The First Settlement of Xew England 

T. Tlie Occasion — Beginning of the Third Centiin' of 
Xew England History. 

A. Xew England ancestors. 

B. New England posterity. 

II. The Purpose — Homage to Pilgrim Fathers. 

A. The Place— Plymouth Eock. 

B. The Time— December 23, 1620-1820. 

C. Comparison with military events. 

1. Marathon and Grecian glory. 

2. Plymouth and American liberty. 

III. The Pilgrim Motive. 

A. Love of religious liberty. 

B. Persecutions in England. 

C. The departure to Holland. 

D. Desire for a home. 

E. New England tbe chosen land. 

IV. The Peculiar Character of American Colonization. 

A. The difference in motive. 

B. The difference in organization. 

C. New and stronger ties. 

D. Eesulting progress. 
V. Benefits of America. 

A. American government. 

1. Popular participation. 

2. Distribution of property. 

33 



34 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

3. Departments of government — compari- 
son with Greek and Roman. 

B. Education in Kew England. 

1. Early provision for schools. 
3. Harvard College. 

C. Eeligious principles. 

VI. Duties of the Descendants of the Pilgrims. 

A. Preservation of forms of government and 

constitution. 

B. The outlook for American literature. 

C. The importance of Chtistianity. 
YII. The Progress of New England. 

A. One hundred years hence. 

B. "Welcome to future generations. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF N1<]W ENGLAXD 

Oration in Commemoration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary. 
Delivered at Plymoutli, on the 2'2d Day of December, 1820. 

1. Let us rejoice that we behold fhis day. Let us be 
thankful that we have lived to see the bright and happy 
breaking of the auspicious morn which commences the 
third century of the history of New England. Auspi- 
cious, indeed — bringing a happiness beyond the common 
allotment of Providence to men — full of present joy, and 
gilding with bright beams the prospect of futurity, is the 
dawn that awakens us to the commemoration of the land- 
ing of the Pilgrims. 

2. Living at an epoch which naturally marks the progress 
of the history of our native land, we have come hither to 
celebrate the great event with which that history com- 
menced. Forever honored be this, the place of our 
fathers' refuge ! Forever remembered the day which 
saw them, weary and distressed, broken in everything but 
spirit, poor in all but faith and courage, at last secure 
from the dangers of wintry seas,. and impressing this shore 
with the first footsteps of civilized man ! 

3. It is a noble faculty of nature which enables us to 
connect our thoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness 
with what is distant in place or time; and, looking before 
and after, to hold communion at once with our ancestors 
and our posterity. Human and mortal although we are, 
we are nevertheless not mere insulated beings, without 
relation to the past or the future. Neither the point of 
time, nor the spot of earth, in wliich we physically live, 

35 



36 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

bounds our rational and intellectual enjo\Tnents, Wv 
live in the past by a knowledge of its history; and in tlie 
future by hope and anticipation. By ascending to an 
association with our ancestors; by contemplating their 
example and studying their character; by partaking their 
sentiments, and imbibing their spirit; b}' accompanyinir 
them in their toils, by sjTupathizing in their sufferings, 
and rejoicing in their successes and their triumphs, we 
seem to belong to their age and to mingle our own exist- 
ence with theirs. TVe become their contemporaries, live 
the lives which they lived, endure what they endured 
and partake in the rewards which they enjoyed. And in 
like planner, by running along the line of future time, by 
contemplating the probable fortunes of those who are 
coming after us, by attempting something which may 
promote their happiness, and leave some not dishonor- 
able memorial of ourselves for their regard, when we 
shall sleep with the fathers, we protract our own earthly 
being, and seem to crowd whatever is future, as well as 
all that is past, into the narrow compass of our earthly 
existence. As it is not a vain and false, but an ex- 
alted and religious imagination, which leads us to raise 
nur thoughts from the orb which, amidst this universe of 
worlds, the Creator has given us to inhabit, and to send 
them with something of the feeling which nature prompts, 
and teaches to be proper among children of the same 
Eternal Parent, to the contemplation of the myriads of 
fellow-beings, with which his goodness has peopled the 
infinite of space; so neither is it false nor vain to consider 
ourselves as interested and connected with our whole 
race, through all time : allied to our ancestors : allied to 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 37 

our posterity; closely compacted on all sides with others: 
ourselves being but links in the great chain of being, 
which begins with the origin of our race, runs onward 
through its successive generations, binding together the 
{)ast, the present, and the future, and terminating at last, 
with the consummation of all things earthly, at the 
throne of God. 

4. We have come to this Rock, to record here our homage 
for our Pilgrim Fathers ; our s}Tnpathy in their sufferings ; 
our gratitude for their labors; our admiration of their 
virtues ; our veneration for their piety ; and our attachment 
to those principles of civil and religious liberty which they 
encountered the dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven, 
the violence of savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy 
and establish. And we would leave here, also, for the gen- 
erations which are rising up rapidly to fill our places, 
some proof that we have endeavored to transmit the great 
inheritance unimpaired; that in our estimate of public 
principles and private virtue, in our veneration of religion 
and piety, in our devotion to civil and religious liberty, in 
our regard for whatever advances human knowledge or 
improves human happiness, we are not altogether unworthy 
of our origin. 

5. There is a local feeling connected with this occasion, 
too strong to be resisted; a sort of genius of the place, 
which inspires and awes us. We feel that we are on the 
spot where the first scene of our history was laid ; where 
the hearths and altars of New England were first placed ; 
where Christianity, and civilization, and letters made their 
first lodgment, in a vast extent of cnuntvy, covered witli a 



38 THE ame:"jcax spirit 

wilderness, and peopled by roving barbarians. We are here, 
at the season of the year at which the event took place. 
The imagination irresistibly and rapidly draws around us 
the principal features and the leading characters in the 
original scene. We cast our eyes abroad on the ocean, and 
we see where the little bark, with the interesting group 
upon its deck, made its slow progress to the shore. We 
look around us, and behold the hills and promontories 
where the anxious eyes of our fathers first saw the places 
of habitation and of rest. We feel the cold which be- 
numbed, and listen to the winds which pierced them. 
Beneath us is the Eock,* on which jSTew England received 
the feet of the Pilgrims. We seem even to behold them, 
as they struggle with the elements, and, with toilsome 
efforts, gain the shore. We listen to the chiefs in coun- 
cil; we see the unexampled exhibition of female fortitude 
and resignation; we hear the whisperings of youthful im- 
patience, and we see, what a painter of our own has also 
represented by his pencil, f chilled and shivering childhood, 
houseless but for a mother's arms, couchless but for a 
mother's breast, till our own blood almost freezes. The 
mild dignity of Carver| and of Bradford ; the decisive and 
soldier-like air and manner of Standish; the devout 
Brewster; the enterprising Allerton; the general firmness 
and thoughtfulness of the whole band ; their conscious joy 
for dangers escaped; their deep solicitude about dangers 

•For further facts about the "Rock" see Palfrey's History of 
New England, Vol. I, p. 171, or Harper's Encyclopedia of U. S. 
History. 

tHenry Sargent's historical painting, "The Landing- of th^ Pil- 
grims at Plymouth." was presented by him to the Pilgrim .Society, 
in whose hall it first appeared in 1824. 

JFor a list of the pasi^engers on the Mayflower, see E. Arl^r'a 
Story of the PilgrUn Fathers, or Harper's Encycl^: oedia of U. S. 
History. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 39 

to come; their trust in Heaven; their high religious faith, 
full of confidence and anticipation; all these seem to be- 
long to this place, and to be present upon this occasion, 
to fill us with reverence and admiration. 

6. The settlement of New England by the colony which 
landed here* on the twenty-second t of December, sixteen 
hundred and twenty, although not the first European es- 
tablishment in what now constitutes the United States, 
was yet so peculiar in its causes and character, and has 
been followed and must still be followed by such conse- 
quences, as to give it a high claim to lasting commemora- 
tion. On these causes and consequences, more than on 
its immediately attendant circumstances, its importance, 
as an historical event, depends. Great actions and strik- 
ing occurrences, having excited a temporary admiration, 
often pass away and are forgotten, because they leave no 
lasting results affecting the prosperity and happiness of 
communities. Such is frequently the fortune of the most 
brilliant military achievements. Of the ten thousand 
battles which have been fought, of all the fields fertilized 
with carnage, of the banners which have been bathed in 
blood, of the warriors who have hoped that they had risen 
from the field of conquest to a glory as bright and as dur- 
able as the stars, how few that continue long to interest 
mankind ! The victory of yesterday is reversed by the 
defeat of today; the star of military glory, rising like a 
meteor, like a meteor has fallen ; disgrace and disaster 
hang on the heels of conquest and renown; victor and 

•For the name of what is now Plymouth and the exact place 
of the landing:, see Arber's Pilgrim Fathers, or Winsor's Narrative 
and Critical History. 

tThe twenty-first is now acknowledged to be the true anniver- 
sary. Seo Palfrey's Neiv Enfiland. 



40 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

vanquished presently pass away to oblivion, and the world 
goes on in its course, with the loss only of so many lives 
and so much treasure. 

7. But if this be frequenth^ or generally, the fortune of 
military achievements, it is not always so. There are en- 
terprises, military as well as civil, which sometimes check 
the current of events, give a new turn to human affairs, 
and transmit their consequences through ages. Vi^e see 
their importance in their results, and call them great, be- 
cause great things follow. There have been battles which 
have fixed the fate of nations. These come down to us 
in history with a solid and permanent interest, not created 
by a display of glittering armor, the rush of adverse bat- 
talions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, the 
pursuit, and the victory; but by their effect in advancing 
or retarding human knowledge, in overthrowing or estab- 
lishing despotism, in extending or destroying human hap- 
piness. When the traveler pauses on the plain of Mara- 
thon, what are the emotions wdiich most strongly agitate 
his breast? What is that glorious recollection which 
thrills through his frame and suffuses his eyes? Not, I 
imagine, that Grecian skill and Grecian valor were here 
most signally displayed; but that Greece herself was 
here saved. It is because to this spot, and to the event 
which has rendered it immortal, he refers all the succeed- 
ing glories of the republic. It is because, if that day had 
gone othervdse, Greece had perished. It is because he 
perceives that her philosophers and orators, her poets and 
painters, her sculptors and architects, her governments 
and free institutions, point baclcward to Marathon, and 
that their future existence seems to have been suspended 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND H 

on the contingency, whether the Persian or the Grecian 
banner should wave victorious in the beams of that day's 
setting sun. And, as his imagination kindles at the retro- 
spect, he is transported back to the interesting moment; 
he counts the fearful odds of the contending hosts; his 
interest for ttie result overwhelms him; he trembles, as if 
it were still uncertain, and seems to doubt whether he may 
consider Socrates and Plato, Demosthenes, Sophocles, and 
Phidias, as secure, yet, to himself and to the world. 

8. "If we conquer," said the Athenian commander, on 
the approach of that decisive day, "if we conquer, we shall 
make Athens the greatest city of Greece."* A prophecy, 
how well fulfilled ! "If God prosper us," might have been 
ihe more appropriate language of our fathers, when they 
landed upon this Pock, "if God prosper us, we shall here 
begin a work which shall last for ages; we shall plant 
here a new society, in the principles of the fullest liberty 
and the purest religion; we shall subdue this wilderness 
which is before us; we shall fill this region of the great 
continent, which stretches almost from pole to pole with 
civilization and Christianity; the temples of the true God 
shall rise where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous 
sacrifice ; fields and gardens, the flowers of summer, and 
the waving and golden harvest of autumn, shall spread 
over a thousand hills, and stretch along a thousand valleys, 
never yet, since the creation, reclaimed to the use of 
civilized man. We shall whiten this coast with the canvas 
of a prosperous commerce ; we shall stud the long 
and winding shore with a hundred cities. That which 
we sow in weakness shall be raised in strength. From 

•Herodotus VI, paragraph 109. 



42 ■ 'i'HE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

our sincere, but houseless worship, there shall spring 
splendid temples to record God's goodness; from the 
simplicity of our social union, there shall arise wise and 
politic constitutions of government, full of the liberty 
which we ourselves bring and breathe; from our zeal for 
learning, institutions shall spring which shalf scatter the 
light of knowledge throughout the land, and, in time, 
paying back where they have borrowed, shall contribute 
their part to the great aggregate of human knowledge ; 
and our descendants, through all generations, shall look 
back to this spot, and to this hour, with unabated affection 
and regard." 

9. Of the motive which influenced the first settlers to a 
voluntary exile, induced them to relinquish their native 
country, and to seek an asylum in this then unexplored 
wilderness, the first an4 principal, no doubt, were con- 
nected with religion. They sought to enjoy a higher 
degree of religious freedom, and what they esteemed a 
purer form of religious worship, than was allowed to 
their choice, or presented to their imitation, in the Old 
World. The love of religious liberty is a stronger senti- 
ment, when fully excited, than an attachment to civil or 
political freedom. That freedom which the conscience 
demands, and which men feel bound by their hopes of 
salvation to contend for, can hardly fail to be attained. 
Conscience, in the cause of religion and the worship of 
the Deity, prepares the mind to act and to suffer beyond 
almost all other causes. It sometimes gives an impulse 
so irresistible, that no fetters of power or of opinion can 
withstand it. History instructs us that this love of 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 43 

religious liberty, a compound sentiment in the breast of 
man, made up of the clearest sense of right and the 
liighest conviction of duty, is able to look the sternest 
despotism in the face, and, with means apparently most 
inadequate, to shake principalities and powers. There is 
a boldness, a spirit of daring, in religious reformers, not 
to be measured by the general rules which control men's 
purposes and actions. If the hand of power be laid upon 
it, this only seems to augment its force and its elasticity, 
and to cause its action to be more formidable and violent. 
Human invention has devised nothing, human power has 
compassed nothing, that can forcibly restrain it, when it 
breaks forth. Nothing can stop it, but to give way to it; 
nothing can check it, but indulgence. It loses its power 
only when it has gained its object. The principle of 
toleration to which the world has come so slowly, is at 
once the most just and the most wise of all principles. 
Even when religious feeling takes a character of extrava- 
gance and enthusiasm, and seems to threaten the order of 
society and shake the columns of the social edifice, its 
principal danger is in its restraint. If it be allowed in- 
dulgence and expansion, like the elemental fires, it only 
agitates, and perhaps purifies, the atmosphere ; while its 
efforts to throw off restraint would burst the world asunder. 
10. It is certain, that, although many of them were re- 
publicans in principle, we have no evidence that our New 
England ancestors would have emigrated, as they did, from 
their own native country, would have become wanderers in 
Europe, and finally would have undertaken the establish- 
ment of a colony here, merely from their dislike of the 
political systems of Europe. They fled not so much from 



44 THE A3IEPvICAX SPIRIT 

the civil government, as from the hierarchy, and the laws 
which enforced conformity to the church establishment. 
Mr. Robinson* had left England a? early as sixteen hun- 
dred and eight, on account of the persecutions for non- 
conformity, and had retired to Holland. He left England, 
from no disappointed ambition in affairs of state, from no 
regrets at the want of preferment in the church, nor from 
any motive of distinction or of gain. Uniformity in matters 
of religion was pressed with such extreme rigor, that a 
voluntary exile seemed the most eligible mode of escaping 
from the penalties of non-compliance. The accession of 
Elizabeth had, it is true, quenched the fires of Smithfield,t 
and put an end to the easy acquisition of the crown of 
martvrdom. Her long reign had established the reforma- 
tion, but toleration was a virtue beyond her conception, 
and beyond the age. She left no example of it to her 
successor; and he was not of a character which rendered 
it probable that a sentiment either so wise or so liberal 
should originate with him. At the present period it 
seems incredible, that the learned,, accomplished, unas- 
simiing, and inoffensive Robinson should neither be 
tolerated in his peaceable mode of worship in his own 
country, nor suffered quietly to depart from it. Yet such 
was the fact. He left his country by stealth, that he 
might elsewhere enjoy those rights which ought to belong 
to men in all cotmtries. The departure of the Pilgrims 
for Holland is deeply interesting, from its circumstances, 
and also as it marks the character of the times, independ- 

•John Robinson was pastor of the Separatist Coni^reeation at 
Scrooby. England, and removed with its members to Holland in 160S. 

tTo find out who kindled the "fires at Smithfield." and who suf- 
fered in them, read Jesse's Memoirs of the Court of England, Vol. I. 
Chapter XTV. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW KNGLAND 45 

cntly of its conner'tion with naiiu's now incorporated ^ 
with the history of empire.- The embarkation was in- 
tended to be made in such a manner that it might escape 
the notice of the officers of government. Great pains had 
been taken to secure boats, wliicli shonld come undiscovered 
to the shore, and receive tlie fugitives; and frequent dis- 
appointments had been experienced in this respect. 

11. At length the appointed time* came, bringing with 
it unusual severity of cold and rain. An unfrecjuented and 
barren heath, on the shores of Lincolnshire, was the selected, 
spot, where the feet of the Pilgrims were to tread, for the 
last time, the land of their fathers. The vessel which was 
to received them did not come until the next day, and in 
the meantime the little band was collected, and men and 
women and children and baggage were crowded together, 
in melancholy and distressed confusion. The sea was 
rough, and the women and children were already sick, from 
their passage down the river to the place of embarkation on 
the sea. At length the wished-for boat silently and fear- 
fully approaches the shore, and men and women and chil- 
dren, shaking with fear and with cold, as many as the small 
vessel could bear, venture off on a dangerous sea. Immedi- 
ately the advance of horses is heard from behind, armed 
men appear, and those not yet embarked are seized, and 
taken into custody. Tn the hurry of the moment, there had 
been no regard to the keeping together of families, in the 
first embarkation, ancV on account of the appearance of the 
horsemen, the boat never returned for the residue. Those 
who had got away, and those who had not, were in equal dis- 

•The Scrooby congregation made its first attempt to leave Eng- 
land in the autumn of 1607. Again in the spring of 160S their 
departure was rudelv interrupted. Read the account in Palfrey's 
History of New England, Vol. I. p. 13S. or consult Dexter. Story of 
the Pilgriins 



46 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

tress. A storm of great violence, and long duration, arose 
at sea, which not onl}^ protracted the voyage, rendered dis- 
tressing by the want of all those accommodations which the 
interruption of the embarkation had occasioned, but also 
forced the vessel out of her course, and menaced immediate 
shipwreck; while those on shore, when they were dismissed 
from the custody of the officers of justice, having no longer 
homes or houses to retire to, and their friends and protectors 
being already gone, became objects of necessary charity, as 
well as of deep commiseration. 

12. As this scene passes before us, we can hardly forbear 
asking, whether this be a band of malefactors and felons 
flying from justice. What are their crimes, that they hide 
themselves in darkness? To what punishment are they 
exposed that, to avoid it, men, and women, and children, 
thus encounter the surf of the North Sea, and the terrors 
of a night storm? What induces this armed pursuit, 
and this arrest of fugitives, of all ages and both sexes? 
Triith does not alloW us to answer these inquiries in a 
manner that does credit to the wisdom or the justice 
of the times. This was not the flight of guilt, but of 
virtue. It was an humble and peaceable religion, flying 
from causeless oppression. It was conscience, attempt- 
ing to escape from the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts. It 
was Eobinson and Brewster, leading off their little band 
from their native soil, at first to find shelter on the shores 
of the neighboring continent, but ultimately to come hither ; 
and having surmounted all difficulties and braved a thou- 
sand dangers, to find here a place of refuge and of rest. 
Thanks be to God, that this spot was honored as the 
asylum of religious liberty ! May its standard, reared here, 



FIRST .SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND ^7 

ri'inain forever! May it rise up as high as heaven till its 
banner shall fan the air of both continents, and wave as* a 
glorious ensign of peace and security to the nations ! 

13. The peculiar character, condition, and circumstances 
of the colonies which introduced civilization and an English 
race into New England, afford a most interesting and ex- 
tensive topic of discussion. On these, much of our sub- 
sequent character and fortune has depended. Their in- 
fluence has essentially affected our whole history, through 
the two centuries which have elapsed; and as they have 
become intimately connected with government, laws, and 
property, as well as with our opinions on the -subject of 
religion and civil liberty, that influence is likely to con- 
tinue to be felt through the centuries which shall suc- 
ceed. Emigration from one region to another, and the 
emission of colonies to people countries more or less dis- 
tant from the residence of the parent stock, are common 
incidents in the history of mankind; but it has not often, 
perhaps never, happened, that the establishment of col- 
onies should be attempted vinder circumstances, however 
beset Avith present difficulties and dangers, yet so favor- 
able to ultimate success, and so conducive to magnificent 
results, as those which attended the first settlements on 
this part of the American continent. In other instances, 
emigration has proceeded from a less exalted purpose, in a 
period of less general intelligence, or more without plan and 
by accident; or under circumstances, physical and moral, 
less favorable to the expectation of laying a foundation for 
great public prosperity and future empire. 

14. A great resemblance exists, obviously, between all 
the English colonies established within the present limits 



48 'i'HE AMEKICAX SPIRIT 

of the United States; but the occasion attracts our atten- 
flon more immediately to those which took possession of 
New England, and the peculiarities of these furnisli a 
stronsr contrast with most other instances of colonization. 



15. Different, indeed, most widely different, from all 
instances of emigration and plantation, were the condition, 
the purposes, and the prospects of our fathers, when they 
established their infant colony upon this spot. They came 
hither to a land from which they were never to return. 
Hither they had brought, and here they were to fix their 
hopes, their attachments, and their object in life. Some 
natural tears they shed, as they left the pleasant abodes 
of their fathers, and some emotions they suppressed, when 
the white cliffs of their native country, now seen for the 
last time, grew dim to their sight. They were acting, 
however, upon a resolution not to be daunted. With what- 
ever stifled regrets, with whatever occasional hesitation, 
with whatever appalling apprehensions, which might 
sometimes arise with force to shake the firmest purpose, 
they had yet committed themselves to Heaven and the 
elements; and a thousand leagues of water soon interposed 
to separate them forever from the region which gave them 
birth. A new existence awaited them here; and when 
they saw these shores, rough, cold, barbarous, and barren, 
as then they were, they beheld their country. That mixed 
and strong feeling, which we call love of country, and 
which is, in general, never extinguished in the heart of 
man, grasped and embraced its proper object here. What- 
ever constitutes counirii, except the earth and the sun, all 
the moral causes of affection and attachment which operate 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF* NEW ENGLAND .49 

upon the heart, they had brought with them to their new 
abode. Here were now their families and friends, their 
homes, and their property. Before they reached ^the shore, 
they had established the elements of a social system,* and 
at a much earlier period had settled their forms of religious 
worship. At the moment of their landing, therefore, they 
possessed institutions of government, and institutions of 
religion : and friends and families, and social and religious 
institutions, constituted by consent, founded on choice and 
preference, how nearly do these fill up our whole idea of 
country! The morning that beamed on the first night of 
their repose, saw the Pilgrims already at home in their 
country. There were political institutions and civil lib- 
erty, and religious worship. Poetry has fancied nothing, 
in the wanderings of heroes, so distinct and characteristic. 
Here was man, indeed, unprotected and unprovided for, 
on the shore of a rude and fearful wilderness; but it was 
politic, intelligent, and educated man. Everything was' 
civilized but the physical world. Institutions, containing 
in substance all that ages had done for human government, 
were organized in a forest. Cultivated mind was to act on 
uncultivated nature; and, more than all, a government 
and a country were to commence, with the very first 
foundation laid under the divine light of the Christian 
religion. Happy auspices of a happy futurity ! WTio would 
wish that his country's existence had otherwise begun? 
Who would desire the power of going back to the ages of 
fable? Who would wish for an origin obscured in t^e 

•The Mayflower compact was .sig'ned on November It, 1620, by 
^rty-one adult members of the Pilgrim company. The text is 
nrinted in tho Introduction. For an account see Palfrey, Vol. I, 
p. 164, or "Mourt's Relation."?" in Arber's Pilgrim Fathers. 



50* THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

darkness of antiquity ? Who would wish for other emblaz- 
oning of his country's heraldry, or other ornaments of her 
genealogy,' than to be able to say that her first existence 
was with intelligence, her first breath the inspiration of 
liberty, her first principle the truth of divine religion? 

16. Local attachments and sympathies would ere long 
spring up in the breast of our ancestors, endearing to them 
the place of their refuge. Whatever natural objects are 
associated with interesting scenes and high efforts, obtain 
a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart a 
sort of recognition and regard. This Eock soon became 
hallowed in the esteem of the Pilgrims, and these hills 
grateful to their sight. Neither they nor their children 
were again to till the soil of England, nor again to traverse 
the seas which surround her. But here was a new sea, 
now open to their enterprise, and a new soil, which had 
not failed to respond gratefully to their laborious indus- 
try, and which was already assuming a robe of verdure. 
Hardly had they provided shelter for the living, ere they 
were summoned to erect sepulchers for the dead. The 
ground had become sacred by inclosing the remains of 
some of their companions and connections. A parent, a 
child, a husband, or a wife had gone the way of all flesh, 
and mingled with the dust of New England. We natu- 
rally look with strong emotion to the spot, though it be 
a wilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. 
Where the heart has laid down what it loved mo'st, there it 
is desirous of laying itself down. No sculptured marble, no 
enduring monument, no honorable inscription, no ever- 
burning taper that would drive away the darkness of the% 
tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OK NEW ENGLAND 51 

liallow to our feelings the groun.l which is to cover us, 
like the consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with 
the objects of our affections. 

17. In a short time, other causes sprung up to bind the 
Pilgrims with new cords to their chosen land. Children 
were born, and the hopes of future generations arose, in 
the spot of their new habitation. The second generation 
found this the land of their nativit3% nd saw that they 
were bound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' 
graves around them, and while they rjud the memorials 
of their toils and labors, they rejoiced in the inheritance 
which they found bequeathed to them. 



18. The second century opened upon New England 
under circumstances which evinced that much had already 
been accomplished, and that still better prospects and 
brighter hopes were before her. She had laid, deep and 
strong, the foundations of her society. Her religious prin- 
ciples were firm, and her moral liabits exemplary. Her 
public schools had begun to diffuse widely the elements of 
knowledge; and the college, under the excellent and 
acceptable administration of Leverett, had been raised to 
a high degree of credit and usefulness. 

19. But if our ancestors at the close of the first century 
could look back with joy, and even admiration, at the 
progress of the country, what emotions must we not feel, 
when, from the point on which we stand, we also look 
hack and run along the events oi the century which has 
now closed! The country which then, as we have seen, 
was thought deserving of a "noble name," — which then ha d 
'•mightily increased," and become "very populous," — what 



53 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

was it, in comparison with what our eyes behold it? At 
that period, a very great proportion of its inhabitants 
lived in the eastern section of Massachusetts proper, and 
in Plymouth colony. In Connecticut, there were towns 
along the coast, some of them respectable, but in the interior 
all was a wilderness beyond Hartford. On Connecticut 
]-iver, settlements had proceeded as far as Deerfield, and 
Fort Dummer had been built near where is now the south 
line of New Hampshire. In New Hampshire no settlement 
was then begun thirty miles from the mouth of Piscataqua 
River, and in what is now ]\[aine, the inhabitants were 
confined to the coast. The aggregate of the whole popula- 
tion of New England did not exceed one hundred and 
sixty thousand. Its present amount (1820) is probably one 
million seven hundred thousand. Instead of being confined 
to its former limits, her population has rolled backward, 
and filled up the spaces included within her actual local 
boundaries. Not this only, but it has overflowed those 
boundaries, and the waves of emigration havie pressed 
farther and farther toward the west. The Alleghany has 
not checked it; the banks of the Ohio have been covered 
with it. New England farms, houses, villages, and churches 
spread over and adorn the immense extent from the Ohio 
to Lake Erie, and stretch along from the Alleghany on- 
wards, beyond the Miamis, and towards the Falls of St. 
Anthony. Two thousand miles westward from the rock 
where their fathers landed, may now be found the sons 
of the Pilgrims, cultivating smiling fields, rearing towns 
and villages, and cherishing, we trust, the patrimonial 
blessings of wisfe institutions, of liberty, and religion. The 
world has seen nothing like this. Regions large enough to 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 53 

be empires, and which, half a century ago, were known 
only as remote and unexplored wildernesses, are now- 
teeming with population, and prosperous in all the great 
concerns of life; in good governments, the means of sub- 
sistence, and social happiness. It may be safely asserted, 
that there are now more than a million of people, descend- 
ants of New England ancestry, living, free and happy, in 
regions which scarce sixty years ago were tracts of un- 
penetrated forest. Nor do rivers, or mountains, or seas 
resist the progress of industry and enterprise. Ere long, 
the sons of the Pilgrims will be on the shores of the 
Pacific* The imagination hardly keeps pace with the 
progress of population, improvement, and civilization. 

20. It is now five-and-forty years since the growth and 
rising glory of America were portrayed in the English 
parliament, with inimitable beauty, by the most consum- 
mate oratort of modern times. Going back somewhat more 
than half a century, and describing our progress as fore- 
seen from that point by his amiable friend. Lord Bathur?t, 
then living, he spoke of the wonderful progress which 
America had made during the period of a single human 
life. There is no American heart, I imagine, that does not 
glow, both with conscious, patriotic pride, and admiration 
for one of the happiest efforts of eloquence, so often as the 
vision of "that little speck, scarce visible in the mass of 
national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a 
formed body," and the progress of its astonishing develop-, 
mont and growth, are recalled to the recollection. But a 

•In reference to the fulfillment of this prediction, see Webster's 
address at the celebration of the New England Society of New York, 
December 22. 1850. See page 85. 

tSee Burke's Conciliation. 



54 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

stronger feeling might be produced, if we were able to 
take up this prophetic description where he left it, and, 
placing ourselves at the point of time in which he was 
speaking, to set forth with equal felicity the subsequent 
progress of the country. There is yet among the living a 
most distinguished and venerable name, a descendant of 
the Pilgrims; one who has been attended through life by 
a great and fortunate genius; a man illustrious by his 
own great merits, and favored of Heaven in the long 
continuation of his years.* The time when the English 
orator was thus speaking of America preceded but by a 
few days the actual opening of the revolutionary drama 
at Lexington. He to whom I have alluded, then at the 
age of forl^, was among the most zealous and able de- 
fenders of the violated rights of his country. He seemed 
already to have filled a full measure of public service, and 
attained an honorable fame. The moment was full of 
difficulty and danger, and big with events of immeasurable 
importance. The country was on the very brink of a civil 
war, of which no man could foretell the duration or the 
result. Something more than a courageous hope, or 
characteristic ardor, would have been necessary to impress 
the glorious prospect on his belief, if, at that moment, 
before the sound of the first shock of actual war had 
reached his ears, some attendant spirit had opened to him 
the vision of the future; — if it had said to him, "The 
blow is struck, and America is severed from England for- 
ever!" — if it had informed him, that he himself, within 
the next annual revolution of the sun, should put his own 
liand to the great instrument of independence, and write 

♦John Adams, second president of the United States. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 55 

Ills name where all nations should behold it, and all time 
should not efface it ; that ere long he himself should main- 
tain the interests and represent the sovereignty of his 
new-born country in the proudest courts of Europe; that 
he should one day exercise her supreme magistracy; that 
he should yet live to behold ten millions of fellow-citizens 
paying him the homage of their deepest gratitude and 
kindest affections; that he should see distinguished talent 
and high public trust resting where his name rested; that 
he should even see with his own unclouded eyes the close 
of the second century of New England, he who had begun 
life albiost with its commencement, and lived through 
nearly half the whole history of his country; and that on 
the morning of this auspicious day he should be found in 
the political councils of his native state, revising, by the 
light of experience, that system of government which forty 
years before he had assisted to frame and establish; and, 
great and happy as he should then behold his country, 
there should be nothing in prospect to cloud the scene, 
nothing to check the ardor of that confident and patriotic 
hope which should glow in his bosom to the end of his 
long protracted and happy life. 



21. The nature and constitution of society and govern- 
ment in this country are interesting topics, to which I 
would devote what remains of the time allowed to this 
occasion. Of our system of government the first thing to 
be said is, that it is really and practically a free system. 
It originates entirely with the people, and rests on no 
other foundation than thoir assent. To judge of its actual 
operation, it is not enough to look merely at the form of 



56 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

its construction. The practical character of government 
depends often on a variety of considerations, besides the 
abstract frame of its constitutional organization. Among 
these are the condition and tenure of property; the laws 
regulating its alienation and descent; the presence or 
absence of a military power; an armed or unarmed 
yeomanry; the spirit of the age, and the degree of general 
intelligence. In these respects it cannot be denied that 
the circumstances of this country are most favorable to 
the hope of maintaining the government of a great nation 
on principles entirely popular. In the absence of military 
power, the nature of government must essentially depend 
on the manner in which property is holden and distributed. 
There is a natural influence belonging to property, whether 
it exists in many hands or few; and it is on the rights of 
property that both despotism and unrestrained popular 
violence ordinarily commence their attacks. Our ancestors 
began their system of government here under a condition 
of comparative equality in regard to wealth, and their 
early laws were of a nature to favor and continue this 
equality. 

22. A republican form of government rests not more on 
political constitutions, than on those laws which regulate 
the descent and transmission of property. Governments 
like ours could not have been maintained, where property 
was holden according to the principles of the feudal system ; 
nor, on the other hand, could the feudal constitution pos- 
sibly exist with us. Our New England ancestors brought 
hither no great capitals from Europe; and if they had, 
there was nothing productive in which they could have 
been invested. Thev left behind them the whole feudal 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 57 

policy of the other continent. They broke away at once 
■from the system of military service established in the dark 
ages, and which continues, down even to the present time, 
more or less to affect the condition of property all over 
Europe. Thev came to a new country. There were, as 
yet, no lands yielding rent, and no tenants rendering serv- 
ice. The whole soil was unreclaimed from barbarism. 
They were themselves, either from their original condition, 
or from the necessity of their common interest, nearly on 
a general level in respect to property. Their situation 
demanded a parceling out and division of the lands, and it 
may be fairly said, that this necessary act fixed the future 
frame and form of their government. The character of 
their political institutions Avas determined by the funda- 
mental laws respecting property. The laws rendered estates 
divisible among sons and daughters. The right of primo- 
geniture, at first limited and curtailed, was afterward 
abolished. The property was all freehold. The entailment 
of estates, long trusts, and the' other processes for fettering 
and tying up inheritances, were not applicable to the con- 
dition of society, and seldom made use of. On the con- 
trary, alienation of the land was every way facilitated, 
even to the subjecting of it to every species of debt. The 
establishment of public registries, and the simplicity of 
our forms of conveyance, have greatly facilitated the 
change of real estate from one proprietor to another. The 
consequence of all these causes has been 8 great subdivi- 
sion of the soil, and a great equality of condition ; the 
true basis, most certainly, of a popular government. *'If 
the people," says Harrington, "hold three parts in four 
of the territory, it is plain there can neither be any single 



58 THE AaiERICAX SPIRIT 

person nor nobility able to dispute the government with 
them; in this case, therefore, except force he interposed, 
they govern themselves." 

23. The division of governments into departments, and 
the division, again, of the legislative department into two 
chambers, are essential provisions in our system. This 
last, although not new in itself, yet seems to be new in its 
application to governments wholly popular. The Grecian 
republics, it is plain, knew nothing of it; and in Eome, 
the check and balance of legislative power, such as it was, 
lay between the people and the senate. Indeed, few things 
are more difficult than to ascertain accurately the true 
nature and construction of the Eoman commonwealth. 
The relative power of the senate and the people, of the 
consuls and the tribunes, appears not to have been at all 
times the same, nor at any time accurately defined or 
strictly observed. Cicero, indeed, describes to us an ad- 
mirable arrangement of political power, and a balance of 
the constitution, in that beautiful passage, in which he 
compares the democracies of Greece with the Eoman com- 
monwealth. 

24. But at what time this wise system existed in this 
perfection at Eome, no proofs remain to show. Her con- 
stitution, originally framed for a monarchy, never seemed 
to be adjusted in its several parts after the expulsion of 
the kings. Liberty there was, but it was a dispiatatious, 
an uncertain, an ill-secured liberty. The patrician and 
the plebeian orders, instead of being matched and joined, 
each in its just place and proportion, to sustain the fabric 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 59 

of the state, were rather like hostile powers, in perpetual 
conflict. With us, an attempt has been made, and so far 
not without success, to divide representation into cham- 
bers, and, b}"" difference of age, character, qualification, or 
mode of election, to establish salutary checks, in govern- 
ments altogether elective. 

25. Having detained you so long with these observations, 
I must yet advert to another most interesting topic — the 
free schools. In this particular, New England may be 
allowed to claim, I think, a merit of a peculiar character. 
She early adopted, and has constantly maintained the 
principle, that is the undoubted right and the bounden 
duty of government to provide for the instruction of all 
youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance or to 
charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public in- 
struction, we hold every man subject to taxation in pro- 
portion to his property, and we look not to the question, 
whether he himself have, or have not, children to be 
benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard 
it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which prop- 
erty, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We 
s^ek to prevent in some measure the extension of the penal 
code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle 
of virtue and of knowledge in an early age. We strive to 
excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, 
by enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere of 
intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, 
as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; 
to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong 
current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of 



60 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

tlie law and the denunciations of religion, against im- 
morality and crime. AVe hope for a security beyond the 
law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened 
and well-principled moral sentiment. We hope to con- 
tinue and prolong the time, when, in the villages and 
farm-houses of New England, there may be undisturbed 
sleep within unbarred doors. And knowing that our 
government rests directly on the public will, in order that 
we maj'' preserve it, we endeavor to give a safe and proper 
direction to that public will. AVe do not, indeed, expect 
all men to be philosophers or statesmen ; but we confidently 
trust, and our expectation of the duration of our system 
of government rests on that trust, that by the diffusion of 
general knowledge and good and virtuous sentiments, the 
political fabric may be secure, as well against open violence 
and overthrow, as against the slow, but sure, undermining 
of licentiousness. 



26. A conviction of the importance of public instruction 
was one of the earliest sentiments of our ancestors. No 
lawgiver of ancient or modern times has expressed more 
just opinions, or adopted wiser measures, than the early 
records of the colony of Plymouth show to have prevailed 
here. Assembled on this very spot, a hundred and fifty- 
three years ago, the legislature of this colony declared, 
"Forasmuch as the maintenance of good literature doth 
much tend to the advancement of the weal and flourish- 
ing state of societies and republics, this court doth there- 
fore order, that in whatever township in this government, 
consisting of fifty families or upwards, any meet man 
shall be obtained to teach a <rrammar-school, such town- 



FIRST SETTLf:MENT OF NEW ENGLAND 61 

ship shall allow at least twelve pounds, to be raised by 
rate on all the inhabitants." 

27. Having provided that all youth should be instructed 
in the elements of learning by the institution of free 
schools,* our ancestors had yet another duty to perform. 
Men were to be educated for the professions and the public. 
For this purpose, they founded the university, and with 
incredible zeal and perseverance, they cherished and sup- 
ported it, through all trials and discouragements. On the 
subject of the university, it is not possible for a son of 
New England to think without pleasure, or to speak with- 
out emotion. Nothing confers more honor on the state 
where it is established, or more utility on the country at 
large. A respectable university is an establishment which 
must be the work of time. If pecuniary means were not 
wanting, no new institution could possess character and 
respectability at once. We owe deep obligation to our 
ancestors, who began, almost on the moment of their ar- 
rival, the work of building up this institution. 

28. Although establislu'd in a different government, the 
colony of Plymoutli manifested warm friendship for Har- 
vard college. At an early period, its government took 
measures to promote a general subscription throughout all 
the towns in this colony, in aid of its small funds. Other 
colleges were subsequently founded and endowed, in other 
places, as the ability of the ];)eople allowed; and we may 
flatter ourselves that the means of education at present 
enjoyed in New England are not only adequate to the 
diffusion of the elements of knowledge among all classes, 

•Find the date of the earliest free schools in Massachusetts Bay 
Colony and of the laws on which they were founded. When was 
Harvard founded? 



62 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

but sufficient, also, for respectable attainments in literature 
and the sciences. 

29. Lastly, our ancestors founded their system of govern- 
ment on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, 
they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foun- 
dation than religious principle, nor any government be 
secure which is not supported by moral habits. Living 
under the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find 
all the social dispositions, all the duties which men owe 
to each other, and to society, enforced and performed. 
AMiatever makes men good Christians makes them good 
citizens. Our fathers came here to enjoy their religion free 
and unmolested; and, at the end of two centuries, there 
is nothing upon which we can pronounce more confidently, 
nothing of which we can express a more deep and earnest 
conviction, than of the inestimable importance of that 
religion to man, both in regard to this life, and that which 
is to come. 

30. If the blessings of our political and social condition 
have not been too highly estimated, we cannot well over- 
rate the responsibility and duty which they impose upon 
us. We hold these institutions of government, religion, 
and learning, to be transmitted, as well as enjoyed. We 
are in the line of conveyance, through which whatever has 
been obtained by the spirit and efforts of our ancestors 
is to be communicated to our children. 

31. We are bound, not only to maintain the general 
principles of public libert}^, but to support also those exist- 
ing forms of government which have so well secured its 
enjoyment, and so highly promoted the public prosperity. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 53 

It is now more than thirty years that these states have 
been united under the federal constitution, and whatever 
fortune may await them hereafter, it is impossible that 
this period of their history should not be regarded as 
distinguislied b}' signal prosperity and success. They must 
be sanguine indeed, who can hope for benefit from change. 
Whatever division of the public judgment may have existed 
in relation to particular measures of the government, all 
must agree, one should think, in the opinion, that in its 
general course it has been eminently productive of public 
happiness. Its most ardent friends could not well have 
hoped from it more than it has accomplished; and those 
who disbelieved or doubted ought to feel less concern 
about predictions which the event has not verified, than 
pleasure in the good which has been obtained. Whoever 
shall hereafter write this part of our history, although he 
may see occasional errors or defects, will be able to record 
no great failure in the ends and objects of government. 
Still less will he be able to record any series of lawless 
and despotic acts, or any successful usurpation. His page 
will contain no exhibition of provinces depopulated, of 
civil authority habitually trampled down by military power, 
or of a community crushed by the burden of taxation. He 
will speak, rather, of public liberty protected, and public 
happiness advanced ; of increased revenue, and population 
augmented beyond all example; of the growth of com- 
merce, manufactures, and the arts; and of that happy 
condition, in which the restraint and coercion of govern- 
ment are almost invisible and imperceptible, and its influ- 
ence felt only in the benefits which it confers. We can 
entertain no better wish for our country, than that this 



64 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

government may be preserved; nor have we a clearer duty 
than to maintain and support it in the full exercise of all 
its just constitutional powers. 

32, The cause of science and literature also imposes upon 
us an important and delicate trust. The wealth and 
population of the country are now so far advanced as to 
authorize the expectation of a correct literature and a 
well formed taste, as well as respectable progress in the 
abstruse sciences. The country has risen from a state of 
colonial subjection; it has established an independent 
government, and is now in the undisturbed enjoyment of 
peace and political security. The elements of knowledge 
are universally diflEused, and the reading portion of the 
community is large. Let us hope that the present may be 
an auspicious era of literature. If, almost on the day of 
their landing, our ancestors founded schools and endowed 
colleges, what obligations do not rest upon us, living under 
circumstances so much more favorable both for providing 
and for using the means of education? Literature be- 
comes free institutions. It is the graceful ornament of 
civil liberty, and a happy restraint on the asperities which 
political controversies sometimes occasion. Just taste is 
not only an embellishment of society, but it rises almost to 
the rank of the virtues, and diffuses positive good through- 
out the whole extent of its influence. There is a connec- . 
tion between right feeling and right principles, and truth 
in taste is allied with truth in moi:ality. With nothing in 
our past history to discourage us, and with something in 
our present condition and prospects to animate us, let us 
hope, that, as it is our fortune to live in an age when 
we may behold a wonderful advancement of the country 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 65 

in all its other great interests, we may see also equal prog- 
ress and success attend the cause of letters. 

33. Finally, yet us not forget the religious character of 
our origin. Our fathers were ])rought hither by their high 
veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by 
its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incor- 
porate its principles with the elements of their society, 
and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, 
civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these senti- 
ments, and extend this influence still more widely; in 
the full conviction, that that is the happiest society which 
partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful 
spirit of Christianity. 

34. The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this 
occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children 
can expect to behold its return. They are m the distant 
regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating 
power of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence, 
to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and 
to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their 
country, uuring the lapse of a century. We would antici- 
pate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep 
regard for our common ancestors. We would antici- 
pate and partake the pleasure with which they will then 
recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the 
morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our 
repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing 
on the Eock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through 
millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in 
the murmurs of the Pacific seas. 



66 THE AMERICAX SPIRIT 

35. We would leave for the consideration of those who 
shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the 
blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation ; 
some proof of our attachment to the cause of good govern- 
ment, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a 
sincere and ardent desire to promote everything which may 
enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men. 
And when, from the long distance of a hundred years, they 
shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we 
possessed affections which, running backward and warming 
with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our 
happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet 
them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on 
the shore of being. 

36. Advance, then, ye future generations ! We would 
hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the 
places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of 
existence where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, 
our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this 
pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the 
healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. 
We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we 
have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good 
government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the 
treasures of science and the delights of learning. We wel- 
come you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to 
the happiness of kindred and parents, and children. We 
welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational 
existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light 
of everlasting truth ! 



THE GREEK REVOLUTION 

From a speech delivered in the House of Representatives of the 
United States, January 19, 1824. 

It is certainly true that the just policy of this country 
is, in the first place, a peaceful policy. No nation ever 
had less to expect from forcible aggrandizement. The 
mighty agents which are working out our greatness are 
time, industry, and the arts. Our augmentation is by 
growth, not by acquisition; by internal development, not 
by external accession. ISTo schemes can be suggested to 
us so magnificent as the prospect which a sober contem- 
plation of our own condition, unaided by projects, unin- 
fluenced b}^ ambition, fairly spreads before us. A country 
of such vast extent, with such varieties of soil and climate, 
with so much public spirit and private enterprise, with a 
population increasing so much beyond former example, 
with capacities of improvement not only unapplied or un- 
exhausted, but even, in a great measure, as yet unex- 
plored — so free in its institutions, so mild in its laws, so 
secure in the title it confers on every man to his own 
acquisitions; needs nothing but time and peace to carry 
it forward to almost any point of advancement. 

In the next place, I take it for granted that the policy 
of this country, springing from the nature of our govern- 
ment and the spirit of all our institutions, is, so far as it 
respects the interesting questions which agitate the pres- 
ent age, on the side of liberal and enlightened sentiments. 
The age is extraordinary; the spirit that actuates it is pe- 
culiar and marked ; and our own relation to the times we 

67 



g3 THE AMEEICAN SPIRIT 

live in, and to the questions which interest them, is equally 
marked and peculiar. We are placed, by our good fortune 
and the wisdom and valor of our ancestors, in a condition 
in which we can act no obscure part. Be it for honor, or 
be it for dishonor, whatever we do is not likely to escape 
the observation of the world. As one of the free states 
among the nations, as a great and rapidly rising republic, 
it would be impossible for us, if we were so disposed, to 
prevent our principles, our sentiments, and our example 
from producing some effect upon the opinions and hopes 
of society throughout the civilized world. It rests prol)- 
ably with ourselves to determine whether the influence of 
these shall be salutary or pernicious. 

It cannot be denied that the great political question of 
this age is that between absolute and regulated govern- 
ments. The substance of the controversy is whether 
society shall have any part in its own government. 
Whether the form of government shall be that of limited 
monarchy, with more or less mixture of hereditary power, 
or wholly elective or representative may perhaps be con- 
sidered as subordinate. The main controversy is between 
that absolute rule, which, while it promises to govern 
well, means, nevertheless, to govern without control, and 
that regulated or constitutional system which restrains 
sovereign discretion, and asserts that society may claim 
as matter of right some effective power in the establish- 
ment of the laws which are to regulate it. The spirit of 
the times sets with a most powerful current in favor of 
these last-mentioned opinions. It is opposed, however, 
whenever and wherever it shows itself, by certain of the 
great potentates of Europe; and it is opposed on grounds 



ORATIONS OF DAXIEL WEBSTER 69 

as appiicable in one civilized nation as in another, and 
which would justify such opposition in relation to the 
United States, as well as in relation to any other state or 
nation, if time and circumstance should render such opposi- 
tion expedient. 

TNTiat part it becomes this country to take on a question 
of this sort, so far as it is called upon to take any part, 
cannot be doubtful. Our side of this question is settled 
for us, even without our owij volition. Our history, our 
situation, our character, necessarily decide our position 
and our course, before we have even time to ask whether 
we have an option. Our place is on the side of free institu- 
tions. From the earliest settlement of these states, their 
inhabitants were accustomed, in a greater or less degree, 
to the enjoyment of the powers of self-government; and 
for the last half-century they have sustained systems of 
government entirely representative, jielding to themselves 
the greatest possible prosperity, and not leaving them 
without distinction and respect among the nations of the 
earth. This system we are not likely to abandon; and 
while we shall no farther recommend its adoption to other 
nations, in whole or in part, than it may recommend itself 
by its visible influence on our own growth and prosperity, 
we are, nevertheless, interested to resist the establishment 
of doctrines which deny the legality of its foundations. 
We stand as an equal among nations, claiming the full 
benefit of the established international law; and it is our 
duty to oppose, from the earliest to the latest moment, 
any innovations upon that code which shall bring into 
doubt or question our own equal and independent rights. 



70 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT » 

From an address delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the 
Bunker Hill Monument at Charlestown, Mass., June 17, 1825. 

Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our 
fates, and therefore still more interesting to our feelings 
and affections, is the settlement of our own country by 
colonists from England. We cherish every memorial of 
these worthy ancestors; we celebrate their patience and 
fortitude ; we admire their daring enterprise ; we teach our 
children to venerate their piety; and we are Justly proud 
of being descended from men who have set the world an 
example of founding civil institutions on the great and 
united principles of human freedom and human knowl- 
edge. To us, their children, the story of their labors and 
sufferings can never be without its interest. We shall not 
stand unmoved on the shore of Plymouth, while the sea 
continues to wasli it ; nor will our brethren in another early 
and ancient colony forget the place of its first establish- 
ment, till their river shall cease to flow by it. No vigor 
of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead the nation to 
forget the spots where its infancy was cradled and de- 
fended. 

The great wheel of political revolution began to move 
in America. Here its rotation was guarded, regular, and 
safe. Transferred to the other continent, from unfor- 
tunate but natural causes, it received an irregular and 
violent impulse; it whirled along with a fearful celerity; 
till at length, like the chariot-wheels in the races of 
antiquity, it took fire from the rapidity of its own motion, 
and blazed onward, spreading conflagration and terror 
around. 



ORATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTER 71 

We learn from the result of this experiment, how for- 
tunate was our own condition, and how admirably the 
character of our people was calculated for making the 
great example of popular governments. The possession 
of power did not turn the heads of the American people, 
for they had long been in the habit of exercising a great 
portion of self-control. Although the paramount authority 
of the parent state existed over them, yet a large field of 
legislation had always been open to our colonial a«- 
semblies. They were accustomed to representative bodies 
and the forms of free government; they understood the 
doctrine of the division of power among different branches, 
and the necessity of checks on each. The character of our 
countrymen, moreover, was sober, moral, and religious ; 
and there was little in the change to shock their feelings 
of justice and humanity, or even to disturb an honest 
prejudice. We had no domestic throne to overturn, no 
privileged orders to cast down, no violent changes of prop- 
erty to encounter. In the American revolution, no man 
sought or wished for more than to defend and enjoy his 
own. None hoped for plunder or for spoil. Eapacity was 
unknown to it; the ax was not among the instruments of 
its accomplishment; and we all know that it could not have 
lived a single day under any well-founded imputation of 
possessing a tendency adverse to the Christian religion. 

And, now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the 
conviction of the benefit which the example of our coun- 
try has produced, and is likely to produce, on human 
freedom and human happiness. Let us endeavor to com- 
prehend in all its magnitude, and to feel in all its impor- 
tance, the part assigned to us in the great drama of human 



72 THE AMEEICAN SPIRIT 

affairs. We are placed at the head of the system of 
representative and popular government. Thus far our 
example shows that such governments are compatible, not 
only with respectability and power, but with repose, with 
peace, with security of personal rights, with good laws, 
and a just administration. 

We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are 
preferred, either as being thought better in themselves, or 
as better suited to existing conditions, we leave the prefer- 
ence to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto proves, however, 
that the popular form is practicable, and that with wisdom 
and knowledge men may govern themselves; and the duty 
incumbent on us is to preserve the consistency of this 
cheering example, and take care that nothing may weaken 
its authority with the world. If, in our case, the represent- 
ative system ultimately fail, popular government must be 
pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances 
more favorable to the experiment can ever be expected to 
occur. The last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with 
us; and if it should be proclaimed, that our example had 
become an argument against the experiment, the knell of 
popular liberty would be sounded throughout the earth. 

These are excitements to duty; but they are not sug- 
gestions of doubt. Our history and our condition, all 
that is gone before us, and all that surrounds us, author- 
ize the belief, that popular governments, though subject 
to occasional variations, perhaps not always for the better, 
in form, may yet, in their general character, be as durable 
and permanent as other systems. We know, indeed, that 
in our country any other is impossible. The principle of 



ORATIONS OF DAl^^IEL WEBSTER 73 

free governments adheres to the American soil. It is 
bedded in it, immovable as its mountains. 

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on 
this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. 
Those are daily dropping from among us who established 
our liberty and our government. The great trust now 
descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that 
which is presented to us, as our appropriate object. We 
can win no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier 
and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are 
there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and 
other founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. 
But there remains to us a great duty of defense and pres- 
ervation : and there is opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, 
to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our 
proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age 
of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the 
arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the 
resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its 
institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether 
we also, in our day and generation, may not perform 
something worthy to be remembered. Let us cultivate a 
true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great 
objects which our condition points out to us, let us act 
under a settled conviction, and an habitual feeling, that 
these twenty-four states are one country. Let our con- 
ceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us 
extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which 
we are called to act. Let our object be, our country, our 

WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, 

by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a 



74 THE AMERICAN SriKIT 

vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, 
but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the 
world may gaze with admiration forever ! 



Ar>A]\IS AND JEFFERSON 

From a discourse in commemoration of the lives and services of 
Jolin Adams and Tliomas Jefferson, delivered in Faneuil Hall. 
August 2, 1S26. 

And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this 
occasion without a deep and solemn conviction of the du- 
ties which have devolved upon us. This lovely land, this 
glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase 
of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, 
ours to transmit. Generations past and generations to 
come hold us responsible for this sacred trust. Our 
fathers, from behind, admonish us, with their anxious 
paternal voices; posterity calls out to us, from the bosom 
of the future; the world turns hither its solicitous eyes; 
all, all conjure us to act wisely, and faitMully, in the re- 
lation which WG sustain. We can never, indeed, pay the 
debt which is upon us; but by virtue, by morality, by 
religion, by tlie cultivation of every good principle and 
every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing, 
through our day, and to leave it unimpaired to our chil- 
dren. Let us feel deeply how much of what we are and 
of what we possess we owe to this liberty, and to these 
institutions of government. Nature has, indeed, given 
us a soil which yields bounteously to the hands of in- 
dustry', the mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and 
the skies over our heads shed health and visjor. But what 



ORATIONS OF D.\XIEL WEBSTER 75 

are lands, and seas, and skies to civilized man, without 
society, without knowledge, without morals, without re- 
ligious culture; and how can these be enjoyed, in all their 
extent and all their excellence, but under the protection 
of wise institutions and a free government? Fellow- 
citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here 
present, who does not, at this moment, and at every mo- 
ment, experience in his own condition, and in the condition 
of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the 
benefits of this liberty and these institutions. Let us then 
acknowledge the blessing, let us feel it deeply and power- 
fully, let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve 
to jnaintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, 
let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope of 
posterity, let it not be blasted. 

The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the 
world around us, a topic to which, I fear, I advert too 
often, and dwell on too long, cannot be altogether omitted 
here. Neither individuals nor nations can perform their 
part well, until they understand and feel its importance, 
and comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties be- 
longing to it. It is not to inflate national vanity, nor to 
swell a light and empty feeling of self-importance, but it 
is that we may judge justly of our situation, and of our 
own duties, that I earnestly urge this consideration of our 
position and our character among the nations of the earth. 
It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute 
against the sun, that with America, and in America, a 
new era commences in human affairs. This era is distin- 
guished by free representative governments, by entire re- 
ligious liberty, by improved systems of national inter- 



76 THE AMEEIC.\N SPIRIT 

course, by a newly awakened and an unconquerable spirit 
of free inquiry and by a diffusion of knowledge through 
the community, such as he has been before altogether un- 
known and unheard of. America, America, our country, 
fellow-citizens, our own dear and native land, is insepa- 
rably connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, 
with these great interests. If they fall, we fall with them ; 
if they stand, it will be because we have upholden them. 
Let us contemplate, then, this connection, which binds the 
prosperity of others to our own; and let us manfully dis- 
charge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the 
virtues and the principles of our fathers. Heaven will 
assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and hujnan 
happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples 
are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly 
upon our path. Washington is in the clear, upper sky. 
These other stars have now joined the American constella- 
tion; they circle round their center, and the heavens beam 
with new light. Beneath this illumination let us walk the 
course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our be- 
loved country, the conmion parent of us all, to the Divine 
Benignity. 



THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 

From a speech delivered at a public dinner in honor of the Cen- 
tennial birthday of Washington, at Washington, D. C, Feb- 
ruary 22, 1832. 

I remarked, gentlemen, that the whole world was and 
is interested in the result of this experiment. And is it 
not so? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this 



ORATIONS OF DAXIEL WEBSTER 77 

inomeut the career which this government is running is 
among the most attractive objects to the civilized world? 
Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment 
that love of liberty and that understanding of its true 
principles which are flying over the whole earth, as on the 
wings of all the winds, are really and truly of American 
origin ? 

The spirit of human liberty and of free government, 
nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in America, 
lias stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like 
an emanation from heaven, it has gone forth, and it will 
not return void. ' It must change, it is fast changing the 
face of the earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in 
our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as 
well as a spirit of power; that its benignity is as great 
as its strength; that its efficiency to secure individual 
rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the 
irresistible force with which it prostrates principalities and 
powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us with 
a willing, but something of a fearful, admiration. Its deep 
and awful anxiety is to learn whether free states may be 
stable as well as free; whether popular power may be 
trusted as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, 
and virtuous self-government is a vision for the contempla- 
tion of theorists, or a truth estal)lished, illustrated, and 
brought into practice in the country of Washington. 

For the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of 
the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to 
hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this 
experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition ? 
I f our example shall prove to be one, not of encouragement, 



78 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be 
shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? 
If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, 
at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter 
be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, 
even, on the darkness of the world ? 

There is no danger of our overrating or overstating the 
important part which we are now acting in human affairs. 
It should not flatter our personal self-respect, but it should 
reanimate our patriotic virtues, and inspire us with a 
deeper and more solemn sense, both of our privileges and of 
our duties. .We cannot wish better for our country, nor 
for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced 
Washington may influence all who succeed him; and that 
the same blessing from above, which attended his efforts, 
may also attend theirs. 

The political prosperity which this country has attained, 
and which it now enjoys, it has acquired mainly through 
the instrumentality of the present government. While this 
agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher 
degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this 
lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with 
power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us 
against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to 
promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dis- 
memberment strikes at the very being which preserves 
these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand 
on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only 
what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquir- 
ing new possessions. It would leave the country, not only 
bereft of its prosperity and liappiness, but without limbs. 



ORATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTER 79 

or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter 
in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness. 

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects over- 
come. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from 
the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust 
our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate 
and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they 
will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It 
were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder capitol were 
to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous 
decorations be all covered by the dusts of the valley. All 
these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the 
fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again 
the well proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? 
Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which 
unites national sovereignty with state rights, individual 
security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns 
fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum 
and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, 
a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will 
flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments 
of Eoman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants 
of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw — 
the edifice of constitutional American liberty. 

But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that 
gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in 
the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the vii^tue and the 
intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious 
obligation. Let us trust t6 the influence of Washington's 
example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which 
expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which 



80 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

transcends all other regard, may influence public men and 
private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her 
happy career. Full of these gratifying anticipations and 
hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which 
is now c-omraenced. A hundred years hence, otlier disciples 
of "Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of 
sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. Wlien 
they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him 
that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits 
of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as 
they shall behold the rivor ou whose banks he lived, and 
on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so 
surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union 
floating on the top of the capitol; and then, as now, may 
the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, 
more lovely, than this our own country ! 

Gentlemen, I propose — "The Memory of George 
Washington." 



THE LAXDIXG AT PLYMOUTH 

From a speech delivered at the public dinner of the New England 
Society of New York in commemoration of the landing of the 
Pilgrims, December 22, 1S43. 

The free nature of our institutions, and the popular form 
of those governments which have come down to us from 
the Eock of Plymouth, give scope to intelligence, to talent, 
enterprise, and public spirit, from all classes making up 
the great body of the community 

I see today, and we all see, that the descendants of the 
Puritans who landed upon the Eock of Plymouth ; the 



OKATIO^S OF D-VMEL WEBSTER 81 

followers of Kaloigh who settled Virginia and North 
(,'arolina; lie who lives where the truncheon of empire, so 
to speak, was borne by Smitli; the inhabitants of doorgia: 
he who settled under the auspices of France at the mouth 
of the Mississippi ; the Swede on the Delaware ; tlie Quaker 
of Pennsylvania — all lind, at this day, their common inter- 
est, tlieir common protection, their common glory, under 
the united government, which leaves them all, neverthe- 
less, in the administration of their own municipal and local 
affairs, to be Frenchmen, or Swedes, or Quakers, or what- 
ever they choose. And when one considers that this system 
of government, I will not say has produced, because Gixl 
and nature and circumstances have had an agency in it — 
but when it is considered that this system has not pre- 
vented, but rather encouraged, the gro^^'th of the people 
of this country from three millions, on the glorious 4th 
of July, 17TG, to seventeen millions now, who is there that 
will say. upon this hemisphere — nay, who is there that will 
stand up in any hemisphere, who is there in any part of 
the world, that will say that the great experiment of a 
united republic has faikxl in America ? 

The settlement at Plymouth is an event that in all time 
since, and in all time to come, and more in times to come 
than in times past, must stand out in great and striking 
characteristics to the admiration of the world. The sun's 
return to his winter solstice, in 1(V20, is the epoch from 
which he dates his first acquaintance with the small people, 
now one of the happiest, and destined to be one of the 
greatest, tliat his rays fall upon; and his annual visita- 
tion, from that day to this, to our frozen region, has 
enabled him to see that progress, PROGRESS, was the 



83 THE AMERIC-\X SPIRIT 

characteristic of tJiat small people. He lias seen them from 
a handful, that one of his beams coming through a key- 
hole might illuminate, spread over a hemisphere, which 
he cannot enlighten under the slightest eclipse. Xor, 
though this globe should revolve round him for tens of 
hundreds of thousands of years, will he see such another 
incipient colonization upon any part of ""his attendant upon 
his mighty orb. 

There is not. Gentlemen, and we may as well admit it, 
in any history of the past, another epoch from which so 
many great events have taken a turn; events which, while 
important to us, are equally important to the country 
from whence we came. The settlement of Plymouth — 
concurring, I always wish to be understood, with that of 
Virginia — was the settlement of Xew England by colonies 
of Old England. Xow, Gentlemen, take these two ideas 
and run out the thoughts suggested by both. "\Miat has 
been and what is to be, Old England? \Miat has been, 
what is, and what may be, in the providence of God, Xew 
England, with her neighbors and associates? I would not 
dwell, Gentlemen, with any particular emphasis upon the 
sentiment, which I nevertheless entertain, with respect to 
the great diversity' in the races of men. I do not know how 
far in that respect I might not encroach on those mysteries 
of Providence which, while I adore, I may not compre- 
hend; but it does seem to me to be very remarkable, that 
we may go back to the time when Xew England, or those 
who founded it, were subtracted from Old England; and 
both Old England and Xew England went on. neverthe- 
less, in their mighty career of progress and power. 

T^t me be?in with Xew England for a moment. "\Miat 



ORATIONS OF 1)AN1J:L WEBSTER 83 

• 

has resulted, embracing, as I say, the nearly contemp- 
oraneous settlement of Virginia, what has resulted from 
the planting upon this continent of two or three slender 
colonies from the mother country? Gentlemen, the great 
epitaph commemorative of the character and the worth, 
the discoveries and glory of Columbus was that he had 
given a new world to the crowns of Castile and Aragon. 
Gentlemen, this is a great mistake. It does not come up at 
all to the great merits of Columbus. He gave the territory 
of the southern hemisphere to the crowns of Castile and 
Aragon ; but as a place for the plantation of colonies, as a 
place for the habitation of men, as a place to which laws 
and religion, and manners and science, were to be trans- 
ferred, as a place in which the creatures of God should 
multiply and fill the earth, under friendly skies and with 
religious hearts, he gave it to the whole world, he gave it 
to universal man ! From this seminal principle, and from 
a handful, a hundred saints, blessed of God and ever 
honored of men, landed on the shores of Plymouth and 
elsewhere along the coast, united, as I have said already 
more than once, in the process of time, with the settle- 
ment at Jamestown, has sprung this great people of which 
we are a portion. 

I do not reckon myself among quite the oldest of the 
land, and yet it so happens that very recently I recurred 
to an exulting speech or oration of my own, in which I 
spoke of my country as consisting of nine millions of 
people. I could hardly persuade ^ myself that within the 
short time which had elapsed since that epoch our popula- 
tion had doubled ; and that at the present moment there 
does exist most unqucstional)ly as great a probability of 



84 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

its continued progress, in the same ratio, as has ever existed 
in any previous time. I do not know whose imagination is 
fertile enough, I do not know whose conjectures, I ahnost 
may sa}'-, are wild enough to tell what may be the progress 
of wealth and population iii the United States in half a 
century to come. All we know is, here is a people of 
from seventeen to twenty millions, intelligent, educated, 
freeholders, freemen, republicans, possessed of all the means 
of modern improvement, modern science, arts, literature, 
with the world before them ! There is nothing to check 
them till they touch the shores of the Pacific, and then, 
they are so much accustomed to water, that that's a facility 
and no obstruction ! 

I can see, that on this continent all is to be Anglo- 
American from Plymouth Eock to the Pacific seas, from 
the north pole to California. That is certain; and in the 
Eastern world, I only see that you can hardly place a 
finger on the map of the world and be an inch from an 
English settlement. 

Gentlemen, if there be any thing in the supremacy of 
races, the experiment now in progress will develop it. If 
there be any truth in the idea, that those who issued from 
the great Caucasian fountain, and spread over Europe, are 
to react on India and on Asia, and to act on the whole 
Western world, it may not be for us, nor our children nor 
our grandchildren to see it, but it will be for our descend- 
ants of some generation to see the extent of that progress 
and dominion of the favored races. 

Eor myself, I believe there is no limit fit to be assigned 
to it by the human mind, because I find at work every- 
where, on both sides of the Atlantic, under various forms 



OEATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTER 85 

and degrees of restriction on the one hand, and under 
various degrees of motive and stimulus on the other hand, 
in these branches of a common race, the great principle 
of the freedom of human thought, and the respectability 
of individual character. I find everywhere an elevation 
of the character of man as man, an elevation of the 
individual as a component part of society. I find every- 
where a rebuke of the idea, that the many are made for 
the few, or that government is any thing but an agency 
for mankind. And I care not beneath what zone, frozen, 
temperate, or torrid ; I care not of what complexion, white 
or brown; I care not under what circumstances of climate 
or cultivation, if I can find a race of men on an inhabitable 
spot of earth whose general sentiment it is, and whose 
general feeling it is, that government is made for man — • 
man, as a religious, moral, and social being — and not man 
for government, there I know that I shall find prosperity 
and happiness. 



PILGRIM FESTIVAL AT NEW YORK IN 1S50 . 

After the customary toasts on this occasion had been given, the 
president of the day, Mr. Grinnell, asked attention to a toast 
wliich, as he said, was not on tlie list, but which he thought 
every one would vote ouglit to be placed there forthwith. 
He gave, "The Constitution and the Union, and their Chief 
Defender." This sentiment was received with great applause; 
and when Mr. Webster rose to respond to it, he was greeted 
with the most prolonged and tumultuous cheers. When the 
applause had subsided, he spoke as follows: 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the j^ew England 
Society of New York : — Ye sons of New England ! Ye 



S6 THK AMKKIC-\^' SPIRIT 

brethern of the kindred tie I I have come hither tonight, 
not without some inconvenience, that I might behold a 
wngregation w-ho<?e faces bear lineaments of a Xew Eng- 
land origin, and whose hearts beat with full New England 
pulsations. I willingly make the sacrifice. I am here to 
attend this meeting of the Pilgrim Society of Xew York, 
the great off-shoot of the Pilgrim Society of Massachusetts. 
And, gentlemen, I shall begin what I have to say, which 
is but little, by tendering to you my thanks for the invita- 
tion extended to me, and by wishing you, one and all. 
every kind of happiness and prosperity. 

Gentlemen, this has been a stormy, cold, boisterous, and 
inclement day. The winds have been harsh, the skies have 
been severe: and if we had been exposed to their rigor: 
if we had no shelter against this howling and freezing 
tempest: if we were wan and worn out; if half of us 
were sick and tired, and ready to descend into the^ grave : 
if we were on the bleak coast of Plymouth, houseless, home- 
less, with nothing over our heads but the heavens, and 
that God who sits above the heavens : if we had distressed 
wives on our arms, and hungry and shivering children 
clinging to our skirts, we should see something, and feel 
something of that scene, which, in the providence of God. 
was enacted at Plymouth on the 2?nd of Peoember. 16?0. 

Thanks to Almighty God. who, from that distressed 
early condition of our fathers, has raised us to a height of 
prosperity and of happiness which they neither enjoyed. 
nor could have anticipated! We have learned much of 
them: they could have foreseen little of us. "Would to 
God, my friends, that, when we carry our affections and 
our recollections back to that period, we could arm our- 



ORATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTER g? 

selves with something of the stern virtues which supported 
them, in that hour of peril, and exposure, and suffering! 
Would to God that we possessed that unconquerable resolu- 
tion, stronger than bai-s of brass or iron, which strengthened 
tlieir hearts; that patience, "Sovereign o'er transmuted 
ills," and, above all, that I'aitli, that religious laiih, 
which, with eyes fast fixed ujnm heaven, tramples all 
things earthly beneath her triumphant feet! 

Gentlemen, the scenes of this world change. What our 
ancestors saw and felt, we shall not see nor feel. ^Tiat they 
acliieved it is denied to us even to attempt. The severer 
duties of life, requiring the exercise of the stern and un- 
bending virtues, were theirs. They were called upon for 
the exhibition of those austere qualities, which, before they 
came to the "Western wilderness, had made them what 
they were. Things have changed. In the progress of 
society, the fashions and the habits of life, with all its 
conditions, have changed. Tlieir rigid sentiments, and 
their tenets, apparently harsh and exilusive, we are not 
called on, in every respect, to imitate or commend ; or 
rather to imitate, for we should commend them always, 
when we consider the state of society in which they had 
been adopted, and in which they seemed necessary. Our 
fathers had that religious sentiment, that trust in Provi- 
dence, that determination to do right, and to seek, through 
every degree of toil and sutTcring, the honor of God, and 
the preservation of their liberties, which we shall do well 
to cherish, to imitate, and to equal, to the utmost of our 
ability. It may be true, and it is true, that in the progress 
of society the milder virtues Imve come to belong more 
especially to our day and our condition. The Pilgrims 



88 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

had been great sufferers from intolerance; it was not un- 
natural that their own faith and practice, as a consequence, 
should become somewhat intolerant. This is the common 
imfirmity of human nature. Man retaliates on man. It is 
to be hoped, however, that the greater spread of the 
benignant principles of religion, of the divine charity of 
Christianity, has, to some extent, improved the sentiments 
which prevailed in the world at that time. ISTo doubt the 
"first comers," as they were called, were attached to their 
own forms of public worship, and to their own particular 
and strongly cherished religious opinions. No doubt they 
esteemed those sentiments, and the observai^ces which they 
practiced, to be absolutely binding on all, by the authority 
of the word of God. It is true, I think, m the general 
advancement of human intelligence that we find, what 
they do not seem to have found, that a greater toleration 
of religious opinion, a more friendly feeling towards all 
who profess reverence for God and obedience to His com- 
mands, is not inconsistent with the great and fundamental 
principles of religion; I might rather say, is itself one of 
those fundamental principles. So we see in our day, I 
think, without any departure from the essential principles 
of our fathers, a more enlarged and comprehensive Chris- 
tian philanthropy. It seems to be the American destiny, 
the mission which has been intrusted to us here on this 
shore of the Atlantic, the great conception and the great 
duty to which we are born, to show that all sects, and all 
denominations, professing reverence for the authority of 
the Author of our being, and belief in His revelations, 
may be safely tolerated without prejudice either to our 
religion or ;to our liberties. 



ORATIONS OF D.iNIEL WEBSTER 89 

In both houses of Congress, in all public oflfices, and all 
public affairs, we proceed on the idea that a man's religious 
belief is a matter above human law; that it is a question 
to be settled between him and his Maker, because he is 
responsible to none but his Maker for adopting or reject- 
ing revealed truth. And here is the great distinction which 
is sometimes overlooked, and which I am afraid is now too 
often overlooked, in this land, the glorious inheritance of 
the sons of the Pilgrims. Men, for their religious senti- 
ments, are accountable to God, and to God only. Eeligion 
is both a communication'and a tie between man and his 
]\[aker; and to his own Master every man standeth or 
falleth. But when men come together in society, establish 
social relations and form governments for the protection 
of the rights of all, then it is indispensable that this 
right of private judgment should in some measure be 
relinquished and made subservient to the judgment of the 
whole. Eeligion may exist while every man is left respon- 
sible only to God. Society, civil rule, the civil state, can- 
not exist, while every man is responsible to nobody and to 
nothing but to his own opinion. And our Now England 
ancestors understood all this quite well. Gentlemen, there 
is the "Constitution" which was adopted on board the 
Mayflower in November, 1620, while that bark of immortal 
memory was riding at anchor in the harbor of Cape Cod. 
What is it? Its authors honored God; they professed to 
obey all His commandments, and to live ever and in all 
things in His obedience. But they say, nevertheless, that 
for the establishment of a civil polity, and for the greater 
security and preservation of their civil rights and liberties, 
they agree that the laws and ordinances, acts and constitu- 



90 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

tions (and I am glad they put in the word "Constitutions") 
— they say that these laws and ordinances, acts and consti- 
tutions, which may be established by those whom they shall 
appoint to enact them, they, in all due submission and 
obedience, will support. 

"We are now two hundred and thirty years from that 
great event. There is the Mayflower.* There is an imita- 
tion on a small scale, but a correct one, of the Mayflower. 
Sons of Xew England ! There was in ancient times a 
ship that carried Jason to the acquisition of the Golden 
Fleece. There was a flag-ship at the battle of Actium 
which made Augustus Caesar master of the world. In 
modern times, there have been flag-ships which have carried 
Hawke, and Howe, and Xelson of the other continent, and 
Hull, and Decatur, and Stewart of this, to triumph. What 
are they all, in the chance of remembrance among men, to 
that little bark, the Mayflower, which reached these shores 
on the 22nd day of December, 1620? Yes, brethern of 
New England, yes! that Mayflower was a flower destined 
to be of perpetual bloom. Its verdure will stand the sultry 
blasts of summer, and the chilling winds of autumn. It 
will defy winter; it will defy all climate, and all time, and 
will continue to spread its petals to the world, and to 
exhale an ever-living odor and fragrance, to the last 
syllable of recorded time. 

Gentlemen, brethern of Xew England! whom I have 
come some hundreds of miles to meet this night, let me 
present to you one of the most distinguished of those per- 
sonages who came hither on the deck of the Ma^-flower. 
Let me fancy that I now see Elder "William Brewster enter- 

•Pointing to a small figure of a ship, in confectionery, represent- 
ing the Mayflower, that stood before him. 



ORATIONS OF DAXfEL WEBSTEE jl 

ing the door at the farther end of this hall; a tall and 
erect figure, of plain dress, of no elegance of manner beyond 
a respectful bow, mild and cheerful, but of no merriment 
:hat reaches beyond a smile. Let me suppose that this 
image stood now before us, or that it was looking in upon 
tibk assembly. 

"Are ye," he would say, with a voice of exultation, and 
yet softened with melancholy, "are ye our children? 
Does this scene of refinement, of el^ance, of riches, of 
hiiury, does all this come from our labors? Is this 
magnificent city, the like of which we nerer saw nor 
herrd of on either c-ontinent. is this but an offshoot from 
Plymouth Bock? 

"Qois jam locns . 
Quae regio in terris noetri son plena laboris? 

'*Is tibis one part of the great reward for which my 
brethem and myself endured lives of toil and of hardship ? 
We had faith and hope. God granted us the spirit to 
look forward, and we did look forward. But this scene 
we never anticipated. Our hopes were on another life. 
Of earthly gratifications we tasted little ; for human honors 
we had little expectation. Our bones lie <hi the hiU in 
Ph-mouth churchyard, obscure, unmarked, secreted, to pre- 
serve our graves from the knowledge of savage foes. Xo 
stone tells where we lie. And yet, let me say to you who 
are our descendants, who possess this glorious country and 
aU it contains, who enjoy this hour of prosperity and the 
thousand blessings showered upon it by the God of your 
fathers, we envy you not, we reproach you not. Be rich, 
be prosperous, be enlightened. Live in plea-sure, if such 
be your allotment on earth; but live, also, always to God 



92 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

and to duty. Spread yourselves and your children over 
the continent, accomplish the whole of your great destiny, 
and if it be that through the whole you carry Puritan 
hearts with you, if you still cherish an undying love of 
civil and religious liberty, and mean to enjoy them your- 
selves, and are willing to shed your heart's blood to trans- 
mit them to your posterity, then will you be worthy 
descendants of Carver and Allerton and Bradford, and the 
rest of those who landed from stormy seas on the rock of 
Plymouth." 

Gentlemen, that little vessel, on the 23d day of Decem- 
ber, 1620, made her safe landing on the shore of Plymouth. 
She had been tossed on a tempestuous ©cean; she ap- 
proached the New England coast under circumstances of 
great distress and trouble; yet, amidst all the disasters 
of her voyage, she accomplished her end, and she bore a 
hundred precious pilgrims to the shore of the I^ew World. 

Gentlemen, let her be considered this night as an emblem 
of New England, the New England which now is. New 
England is a ship, staunch, strong, well built, and partic- 
ularly well manned. She may be occasionally thrown into 
the trough of the sea by violence of winds and waves, and 
may wallow there for a time ; but, depend upon it, she will 
right herself. She will ere long come round to the wind, 
and obey her helm. 

We have hardly begun, my brethren, to realize the vast 
importance to human society, and to the history and happi- 
ness of the world, of the voyage of that little vessel which 
brought hither the lave of civil and religious liberty, and 
the reverence of the Bible, for the instruction of the future 
generations of men. We have hardly begun to realize the 



ORATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTER 93 

consequences of that voyage. Heretofore the extension 
of our race, following our New England ancestry, has crept 
along the shore. But now it has extended itself. It has 
crossed the continent. It has not only transcended the 
Alleghanies, but has capped the Eocky Mountains. It is 
now upon the shores of the Pacific; and on this day, or, 
if not on this day, then this day twelve month, descendants 
of New England will there celebrate the landing. . . . 
(A Voice. "Today; they celebrate it today.") 
God bless them ! Here's to the health and success of the 
California Society of Pilgrims assembled on the shores of 
the Pacific. And it shall yet go hard if the three hundred 
millions of people of China, provided they are intelligent 
enough to understand anything, shall not one day hear and 
know something about the rock of Plymouth too. 

THE ADDITION TO THE CAPITOL 

An address delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the addi- 
tion to the Capitol on the 4th day of July, 1851. 

This inheritance which we enjoy today is not only an 
inheritance of liberty, but of our own peculiar American 
liberty. . . . That liberty is characteristic, peculiar, and 
altogether our own. Nothing like it existed in former 
times, nor was known in the most enlightened states of 
antiquity; while with us its principles have become inter- 
woven into the minds of individual men, connected with 
our daily opinions, and our daily habits, until it is, if I 
may say so, an element of social as well as of political life ; 
and the consequence is, that to whatever region an Amer- 
ican citizen carries himself, he takes with him, fully devel- 



?4 THE AMKKICAX SriRIT 

oped in his own understanding and e:xperienc^, our Amer- 
ican principles and opinions, and beeomets readv at once, 
in co-operation "with others, to apply them to the fonnation 
of new govemments. Of this a most wonderful instance 
may be seen in the history of the State of California. 

On a former occasion I ventured to remaric. that *^t is 
very difficult to estalJlish a free cons^^rrative government for 
the equal adv^ancanent of all the interests of society. What 
has Germany done, learned Gneimany. more full of ancient 
lore than all the world beside? What has Italy done? 
What have they done who dwell on the spot where Cicero 
lived? They have not the power of sell-govejnmeait whio^^ 
a common town-meeting, with us, possesses. .... 

"Yes, I say that those persons who have gone from our 
town-meeiings to dig gold in California are more nt to make 
a republican government than any body of men in Ger- 
many or Italy: because they have learned this one gneat 
lesson, that thei>e is no security without law, and that, 
under the circumstances in which they are plaoed, where 
thei^ is no military authority to cut their throats, ihwe is 
no sovervjign will but the will of the majority; that, thenf- 
fope, if they i^emain, they must submit to tiiat wtU." And 
this I believe to be strictly true, , 

I will venture to state, in a few wtads, what I take these 
American principles in substance to be, Tkey omsist, as 
1 think, in the first place, in the estahliskm»it of pc^wlar 
governments, on the basis of wprcsjentation : fw it is x^ain 
that a pure democracy, like that which existed in s>c*rae of 
the states of Qwece, in which exwy individual had a direct 
vote in the ^ladxiient of all laws, cannot possiUy esist in 
a country of wide «t»it This repitesentatioB is to be BMde 



ORATIOXS OF DANIEL WEBSTER I>5 

as equal as circumstancos will allow. Xow, tliis principle 
of popular representation, prevailing either in all the 
bnuuJies of governnionu or in some of them, has existeil in 
these States almost from the days of the settlements at 
Jamestown ainl riymouth: borrowed, no doubt, from the 
example of the jx>pular branch of the British legislatun?. 
The representation of the people in the British House of 
Commons was. however, originally very une<|ual. and is 
yet iK>t etjUiil. Indeevl, it may be doubted whether the 
ap|varance of knights and burgesses, assembling on the 
summons of the crown, was not intendcvi at first as an 
assistance imd support to the royal prerogative, in matters 
of ivvenue and taxation, rjither than as a mode of ascer- 
taining popular opinion. Xevertheless, representation had 
a popular origin, and savored more and more of the char- 
acter of that origin, as it acvjuired, by slow degrees, greater 
and greater strength, in the actu:^l government of the 
country. The constitution of the House of Commons was 
certainly a form of representation, however unequal ; num- 
Ivrs were counted, and majorities prevailed ; and wlien our 
ancestors, acting upon this example, introduced more 
ei]uality of representation, the idea assumed a mor« 
rational and distinct shape. At any nite, tliis manner of 
exercising popular power was familiar to our fathers when 
they settled on this continent. They adopted it, and gen- 
eration has risen up after generation, all acknowledging 
it, and all learning its practice and its forms. 

The next fundamental principle in our system is. that 
"e will of the majority, fairly expressed through means of 
opresentation. shall have the fonv of law; and it is quite 
vident that, in a coimtrv without thrones or aristocracies 



96 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 

or privileged castes or classes, there can be no other founda- 
tion for law, to stand upon. 

And, as the necessary result of this, the third element is, 
that the law is the supreme rule for the government of all. 
The great sentiment of Alzaeus, so beautifully presented 
to us by Sir William Jones, is absolutely indispensable to 
the construction and maintenance of our political systems : 

What constitutes a state? 

Xot high-raised battlement or labored mound, 
Thick wall or moated gate; 

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned ; 
Not bays and broad-armed ports, 

Where, laughing at the storm, rich naviej ride; 
Not starred and spangled courts, 

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 
No: Men, high-minded Men, 

With powers as far above dull brutes endued, 
In forest, brake, or den, 

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude: 
Men who their duties know, 

But know their rights and, knowing, dare maintain; 
Prevent the long aimed blow, 

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : 
These constitute a state; 

And Sovereign Law, that State's collected will, 
O'er thrones and globes elate 

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. 

And finally, another most important part of the great 
fabric of American liberty is, that there shall be written 
constitutions, founded on the immediate authority of the 
people themselves, and regulating and restraining all the 
pojvers conferred upon government, whether legislative, 
executive, or judicial. _ ^^ 

3477^61 
Lot-.19 



ORATIONS OF DANIEL WEBSTER 97 

This, fellow-citizens, I suppose to be a just summary of 
our American principles, and I have on this occasion 
sought to express them in the plainest and the fewest 
words. The summary may not be entirely exact, but I 
hope it may be sufficiently so to make manifest to the rising 
generation among ourselves, and to those elsewhere who 
may choose to inquire into the nature of our political insti- 
tutions,, the general theory upon which they are founded. 

And I now proceed to add, that the strong and deep- 
settled conviction of all intelligent persons amongst us is, 
that, in order to support a useful and wise government 
upon these popular principles, the general education of the 
people, and the wide diffusion of pure morality and true 
religion, are indispensable. Individual virtue is a part of 
public virtue. It is difficult to conceive how there can 
remain morality in government when it shall cease to exist 
among the people; or how the aggregate of the political 
institutions, all the organs of which consist only of men, 
should be wise, and beneficent, and competent to inspire 
confidence, if the opposite qualities belong to the individ- 
uals who constitute those organs, and make up that 
aggregate. 



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